Homicide or Suicide?
by Gaiden
Summary: There's a mess in the Wells Fargo of Las Vegas. Is it a suicide bomber or something more sinister?
1. A Big Mess

Disclaimer: 

I don't own CSI, the fellows at CBS do. I don't mean to offend anyone's sensibilities. If I do, live with it, these are my opinions. I make no money off of this endeavor, I write it for the sole enjoyment of writing (and to please anyone who reviews)

Thank you:

Stelmarta my ever-loving Beta! Mommy just 'cause. 

Spoilers:

Up to and possibly including Hungry Artist, I haven't really checked.

Please R & R

Chapter one 

The main lobby of the Wells Fargo Bank of Las Vegas was crowded. It was the third Friday of the month, many people, mostly union workers for the labor unions in Vegas, were cashing their respective paychecks and heading out into the Vegas night to spend a little money on the lucky dice. Or not so lucky dice, as the case may be. 

It was one of the oldest buildings in Vegas, a national historic landmark if anyone bothered to read the sign. It had been there long before the casino boom, a post station for the stage coaches full of gold heading their way west.  

A woman walked into the lobby. Interviews would later give conflicting opinions of her height, weight, and appearance, but for the moment she was dressed in a simple sundress, loose and gauzy around her knees. She carried nothing in her hands, of that they were all certain. She walked into the middle of the lobby, carefully positioning herself on one of the blue tiles, patterned in the blue and red flooring. A gentleman bumped into her, he was in a hurry, not looking where he was going. 

"Oh I'm sorry, ma'am. I didn't mean to bump into you."

"That's alright," she said softly "I wasn't going anywhere anyhow."

A split second later she exploded.

Blood, tissue, bits of fiber and bone scattered across the lobby. The man who'd been standing by her side was killed almost instantaneously, bone from her body driving deep into his. Several other onlookers were wounded, the rest scattered. Over a radius of several meters, there was nothing but a circle of red. Within minutes the police responded to a jumpy teller's emergency button. Within minutes of that the CSI unit was on scene. 

_Who are you?_


	2. A Bad Day At the Office

Disclaimer: I don't own it, I don't pretend to own it, and I don't mean to offend anyone's sensibilities.

Thank You: Stelmarta for being there! Mom because I love her!

Chapter Two

Long before the woman in the Wells Fargo exploded, Sara Sidle decided that she was having a bad day. Her computer caught a virus and needed to be purged, her hot water tank mysteriously went cold after ten minutes, leaving her wet and shivering by the time she was done, her car needed gas, and she ran out of cash and needed to charge her one dollar sausage biscuit, not to mention she'd overslept to begin with. 

That, in and of itself, wasn't really a travesty, she was on time to work, but she was usually an hour or so early. The only problem with this was that Nick had been waiting, early, for her to go over the lab results for a 412 vehicle crash. They'd found the owner, but had yet to determine if the ten pounds of crack cocaine was his or the perp's as he claimed. 

The evidence proved that the dope was the owners', but that was beside the point. Nick had begun the evening teasing her relentlessly for being 'late'. On top of her day, it just wasn't right. Grissom, getting into the swing of things, arched his eyebrows in an impossibly 'Griss' gesture and asked, quite attentively, if she was all right. Sara really hadn't meant to growl quite that much, or snap quite that sharply, but when Catherine went ahead and teased her about it she overloaded. Scowling over her coffee she declared that she'd overslept, not that it was anyone's business, and unless it started to affect her job she didn't want to hear about it.  

As a result she was in a bit of a funk when Grissom fetched her out of the lab for an emergency 405, 445A and a 420. How they could have a bomb, a suicide and a homicide escaped her, but as they walked into the scene it quickly became obvious what happened. It was a suicide bombing that killed a passer-by. 

What a charming way to start a shift.

"Sara, look at this" Catherine, lovely, immaculate and perpetually on time Catherine, motioned for her to come over. Sara squeaked across the floor, marred by bright red blood, lumps of reddish pink tissue, and hundreds, if not thousands of footprints. 

"What is it? Sara stepped over the suspended strings, each marking out one square foot of space on the massive Wells Fargo entry. 

"I think it's a piece of the explosive." She picked up her tweezers; in between the tines was an impossibly miniscule fragment of metal. 

"Great, now if we can only find the other twelve million pieces of bomb, that is if no one carried them out on their shoes, then we might be able to possibly begin to jigsaw them back together." Sara leaned down on her haunches, "this is impossible. Even if the crime scene hadn't been completely compromised by the crowd, where the hell would we get the man power to get this crap up?" 

"Well we'll certainly get the manpower for it." Grissom held up his cell phone "The Feds just called Brass, ATF and FBI should be here within the hour."

"Wonderful" Catherine placed another bloody lump into a collection bag. "That's just what we needed, the power of the Federal government."

"Catherine, naughty, naughty, remember the 'office of homeland security'. We need to be aware of potential terrorism within the US." Grissom dripped so much sarcasm Sara thought it would fall to the floor in a puddle. 

"Potential terrorism? Grissom, we have a white, possibly female, possibly male, individual, who may well have been working alone, a few lumps of organ tissue, and a pair of dead bodies. No nails, no ball bearings, no shrapnel of any kind. If this was a terrorist act it was pretty pathetic. An idiot could have offed at least a hundred people, all this did was mess up the floor." Sara slid towards him "There is way more to this than meets the eye."

"Agreed, unfortunately we have to bow to the powers that be." He snapped the cell phone shut, "However, I have Nick working with Judge Parker at this very moment. With any luck we can get a confirmation of our local jurisdiction and a restraining order within the hour. No one but a CSI or police detective registered, licensed and employed by the Las Vegas sheriff's department should be crossing that line." He motioned to the yellow tape strung across the door.

"Is that legal?" Catherine stood back up, stretching out the muscles in her back that were stiff from the prolonged crouching.

"I don't know, I think so, I hope so." He sighed, "In any case it ought to keep them off of our backs long enough to get most of this…mess… cleaned up."

"Wonderful." Sara stepped back to survey the, well, the mess for lack of a better term. "Hey Griss?"

"Yeah?"

"We still got the metal detector in the van?" Not waiting for his answer, she started to squelch her way to the yellow tape in search of the CSI van.

"Good idea, we can find as many of the bomb fragments as possible." Grissom moved to a fresh row, next to the orange strings delineating Sara's section. "Why don't we get the camera back out? Sara, grab the camera out of the van as well as the metal detector." He called out over his shoulder.

"Sure, what do you want with it?"

"I got an idea." He motioned her over to one of the squares filled with blood spatter. "Get up close, no closer, yeah. Make the picture one negative of one square foot of the area. Then we can get a, a spatula, I guess and scrape the contents of one of the squares onto this." He held up a Ziploc baggie full of unidentifiable reddish material. "Run the metal detector over it first and put little markers over the spots. Do the same thing with the footprints. That way we can re-create the crime scene back at the lab without compromising it any more."

"Good idea, but what about the distancing? We need to get precise measurements of the spatter locations." Catherine, her speciality blood spatters, looked a little worried. Sara answered for Grissom. 

"Yeah, but with the markers each one foot long we can just scale it down. We'll know how many feet the blood flew and we can get everything from there."

"Sounds good," Catherine grinned, "And fast, we'll get this scene cleaned up in no time if we do it that way." 

"That wouldn't be our problem would it?" Grissom deadpanned.

Sara painstakingly took the camera and photographed each and every square foot of the Wells Fargo building, including the walls and vaulted ceiling. Catherine ran the metal detector and set up the portable rulers for footprint identification. Grissom walked behind them, with half a dozen kids from the police academy, scraping the remains off of the floor and into little Ziploc baggies. They worked in a circle, centring on the main scene: the bodies. Or at least what was left of the bodies. 

With a practiced physicist's eye, Sara watched the scene unfold from behind her camera lens. Estimating the explosive size, weight and composition, based on the rough measure of the maximum spatter, Sara mentally figured the epicentre of the explosion and the approximate height of the explosive device. 

"Hey Grissom?"

"What is it?"

"I haven't really measured anything, but I'd put the middle of the damn thing right about square 16 H."

"So the bodies blew out wards form the explosion?"

"Yeah, sort of, look I don't have everything precise, but I'm thinking it was the female with the bomb and the male presence was …incidental?"

"Collateral damage?" asked Catherine, "He was just a passer-by?"

"Yeah, I guess so. We won't know until I get the official results done, but I'm thinking that it was strapped to her right around here." She made a gesture around her lower abdomen, "Like a belt or something."

 "That would be consistent with the physical damage. The female's body is in more um, pieces." Catherine blew some hair out of her face, "And the spatters seem to indicate that whatever it was, the explosive was pretty damn powerful."

"Whew!" Nick's voice carried over the scene, "This stinks."

"Yeah, well if you'd spent the past three hours scraping someone else's guts off of a marble slab, I'm sure you'd think it sucks too." Sara sniped. She still hadn't quite forgiven him for teasing her that afternoon. 

"Well good morning to you too, Sunshine." He blew her an exaggerated kiss, and winked. Sara sent him the requisite dirty look back.

"Nick," Grissom warned, he got up off of the floor and snapped off his surgical gloves. "Have you got the restraining order?"

"Yeah," he reached a paper out of his coat pocket. "Judge Parker says it'll probably hold for about an hour after the Fibbies get a hold of it, but that ought to give you enough time, right?" 

"With any luck we can have most of the evidence away in the lab, then they can't try to claim Federal jurisdiction, not without compromising the chain of evidence." Grissom tucked the sheet of paper back into his Forensics jacket.

"Y'know, had it ever occurred to you that having the Fed's in on this might be a good thing?"

"Nick, can it. We've got the best damn crime lab in the nation. No way do we need some two bit Federal agent telling us what to do and where to look." Sara stretched, sore from hunching over marble and rose briefly all the way up to her tippy-toes, holding the camera in one hand. 

Nick couldn't help but take a moment to admire a very attractive specimen of woman, but as soon as her eyes snapped back down to earth he turned his head away. 

Sara wouldn't appreciate being admired like that. Ladies man he may well be, but he always prided himself on making the women around him comfortable. With Catherine he knew that if he sent an appreciative eye her way she'd take it in the spirit for which it was intended, simple admiration. He had done so, on occasion and in a strictly friendly manner, and she'd just grinned back at him, proud that she'd caught a roving glance. Sara'd probably deck him if she ever caught him staring, and she'd never relax around him again. I'd be awkward; she'd back out of assignments to avoid him and he could forget ever staying alone in a room with her. 

Sometimes he wished she wasn't so damn sensitive. She knew how to have fun, but still, anything remotely personal was strictly off limits. He knew that was just the way Sara was; she just didn't accept personal contact too frequently.

Now if he could only convince himself to quit looking at her on a regular basis he'd be a made man. She was attractive though, in a long-legged kind of touch-me-not sort of way. Ribbing her was fun, half the fun of the job. He couldn't quite remember what it was like before Sara joined the team. It must not have been too much fun.            

"What?" 

She sounded a bit disgruntled and slightly concerned, Nick looked up again and Sara was now staring at him.

"Nothing" he said quickly, too quickly, 'damn' he thought to himself. She'd never give up on him; tenacity had nothing on this woman. 

"You just don't want to look at me, is that it? I'm not that ugly, Romeo." Great, now he'd hurt her feelings.

"No, I um," he thought quickly, "I just, it bothers me, sometimes…the blood and all that…stuff." He made a vague gesture towards the now red colour marble laid out behind her.

Apparently that had been the right thing to say, not that the horrific scene hadn't bothered him, but her eyes went soft and she got that sympathetic look on her face, usually reserved for animals and dead people. 

"I know, Nick. It sucks. We'll get him, though, that's our job, and we'll get this bastard." Her voice was a little thick, and she looked away from his eyes.

"Yeah," he said, almost nervously. Her hand came up and she made as if to pat him on the shoulder, but it was still covered in a plastic glove and was a little red. It was an awkward moment as he moved and she moved at the same time, but it passed. 

"Well I gotta get back, Warrick's got a 406 up in North side he needs some help on." he grinned, "and guess who's the best man for the job."

"Someone's doing some expensive shopping, north side's the rich district." She turned around and squeaked back to her crime scene. "And you're not the best men for the job, Nick, you're the only one!" 

He ginned, that was the Sara that Las Vegas CSI knew and loved. He climbed back into his Tahoe with more of a spring in his step. Warrick was waiting by a pile of broken glass; one thing Sara'd been right about, north side was the rich district. In Vegas, rich was really rich.  


	3. A Gentleman and A Scholar

Disclaimer: I don't own it, I don't pretend to own it, and I don't mean to offend anyone's sensibilities.

Thank You: Stelmarta for being there! Mom because I love her!

Chapter Three

Nick decided to wait for Sara, Catherine, and Grissom. Warrick left to fetch Catherine's daughter Lindsay; the two men had a busy night. Beyond the robbery Nick told Sara about, they'd had two vehicle crashes and one assault and battery.

 Ecklie was also waiting for the graveyard shift of Vegas CSI, apparently furious that Grissom had got the suicide bombing and not the day shift. He marched up and down the hallway, glowering and snapping at random people. Nick ignored him, there was not much Ecklie could do about it, first come first serve. 

 FBI and ATF had been in and out of the Las Vegas PD building all night. They didn't look to happy with night shift either, the restraining order must have held longer than Judge Parker predicted. When he could see dawn kiss the parking lot, Nick told Warrick to go pick up Lindsay from Catherine's house and take her to school. Lindsay was very fond of her 'Uncle Wawick' almost as much so of 'Nicky-pie' and 'Mr. Gwissom". Whenever it became clear that Catherine couldn't make it, one of them took care of her daughter. 

 Anything that came up after that point either he or Ecklie's day shift CSI could handle. For lack of anything better to do, and out of hunger, Nick fetched some 'breakfast' out of the CSI fridge. He hoped that whoever owned the Tupperware full of pasta primavera would forgive him, but his stomach was growling like a whole pride of lions. He also checked it very carefully for any trace of one of Grissom's 'experiments' before digging in. Experience was a very efficient teacher. 

He had a long wait. It was almost ten in the morning before Catherine staggered into the break room. She whipped the door open, bouncing it off the far wall and catching it back in her hand. Her clothing, usually if not pristine, then neat, was askew. Her hair was flying out of a loosely clasped ponytail, blonde wisps sticking out everywhere. She made it three steps into the break room and collapsed on the sofa, making it sigh and give up some of its padding with a soft "whumph".

"Rough night?" she gave a vague grunt and flipped off both boots, before propping her feet on the edge of the sofa. "I told Warrick to go get Lindsay and get her to school, so she should be fine. I haven't heard anything over the police radio yet."

"You're a God, Nick. There ought to be a statue raised to you in the middle of the Strip. I swear if I see one more little tiny bit of red, I'm gonna hurl." When Nick moved to give her stocking feet a little massage, she groaned out loud. "Griss and Sara are still with, oooh that was nice; yeah they're still with the Doc trying to piece together our victims." She closed her eyes and Nick could see the strain that the past few hours had inflicted on this (almost) single working mom. 

"Yeah that's me, Nick the Foot-rub God."

 Ecklie walked by the break room, unbeknownst to Catherine as she had her back to him, he looked as though he was going to walk in, but the sight of Nick rubbing Catherine's feet seemed to convince him otherwise. Just as well, thought Nick, none of them needed Ecklie's kind of vitriol that morning. Grissom walked in and arched his eyebrow in one of those incomprehensibly 'Grissom' gestures.

"Keep it clean kids, there are police in the building. I'd hate to see you arrested for disturbing the peace or indecent exposure." Catherine gave an unladylike snort, and chucked one of her boots in his general direction. 

"Hey! Watch it!" Sara, who'd been hiding behind Grissom, fielded the boot, and tossed it back. "What did I do?"

"Nothing, it was supposed to be for Gil." Now he knew that Catherine was tired. She didn't usually refer to Grissom by his first name in mixed company. "What's that smell?"

"Oh someone left some pasta in the fridge; I warmed it up while I was waiting."

"You're eating my pasta?" Sara put her hands on her hips. "That's my takeout, not yours. It's fresh from the Pasta Garden. See, look my name's even on the lid."

"Hey, if you want it back." 

Nick shifted from Catherine to the table and thrust the half empty primavera at Sara. That was the wrong gesture, she took one look at the lumpy, red sauce and limp, soggy noodles and turned three shades of pale before bee lining for the trash can and returning whatever it was she ate before she planned on pasta as a midnight snack. 

Nick would have gone to help, but Grissom put a hand on her shoulder and waved him off. Sara heaved until there was nothing left and then heaved some more for good measure. 

"Sorry about that, I wasn't thinking" Nick felt like a well and true heel, 'she walks in the door, you make her puke, great job Nick-o.' he berated himself. That was a good way to win her trust.

"That's alright; it was going to come up anyhow." She straightened, slightly wobbly, "You got some water?" That he did have, he twisted the cap off of his Aqua Fina bottle and handed it to her. She took a gulp and swished it around before spitting that up too. "Thanks" 

"Nick, you take Sara home. Catherine's coming with me. I don't think any of us are fit to drive home by ourselves." Grissom took off his glasses and rubbed the bridge of his nose. "Doc's got the …remains…all that's left to do is the processing. We've got three dozen Federal agents at our disposal, I'm going to put them to use. Things should look better after we get some sleep."

It was likely measures of their mutual lack of sleep and severe strain that neither Catherine nor Sara objected to Grissom's orders. Nick walked Sara out to his Tahoe; she climbed in the passenger seat and promptly fell asleep.

 Halfway down the interstate he realized something: he didn't know where Sara lived. Stealing a glance at her sleeping form, he mentally shrugged. If she was this out of it he didn't want to wake her up, not to mention that having her wake up in his apartment would tickle him no end as well. 

Sliding one arm around her he gently lifted her from the seat of his Tahoe, she was light. He regularly benched more weight then he was sure she weighed. Warmth filled him as he carried her to his home, more than usual. If this had been Catherine it would have been different, she was his friend, Warrick would be walking, no way was he carrying a guy, but Sara was different, she made him feel all protective and fuzzy inside. 'Great, now you're turning into Mr. Sensitive type' he snorted, "Next thing you'll be comparing tile samples or paint chips' 

It took a bit of fumbling, but he managed to get the key in and turned without having to put her down. Sara was truly dead to the world. He didn't stop when he got the door open, he just barged right back and set her down on his bed. Going back to fasten the door shut, he took in the sight of her, asleep on his bed, curls tangled against the white pillowcase. She really was a beautiful woman and she looked so good in his bed.  

The next step was the difficult one: he unlaced and removed her boots, pulled off her socks, and was faced with a dilemma. Her jeans, although rolled up and tucked in to the blue CSI coveralls, were still bloodstained around the cuffs and through the knees. Her shirt was spotted with bits of things he didn't even want to think about, but if he removed either article of clothing she'd likely do something to him that both of them would regret. The hell with it, he didn't want that crap on his sheets anyhow.

He unsnapped and removed her jeans and pulled the tie-dyed t-shirt off over her head. Experience with removing clothing from women who were awake and responsive was one thing, getting them off of  Sara Sidle while asleep and when he desperately didn't want to wake her up was another can of worms entirely. She was zonked though; nothing short of a full scale nuclear explosion could have got her up, never mind the removal of most of her clothing. 

When he did get one arm out of her shirt off he rolled her on her stomach to get the other and froze. On her back, cris-crossed like a checkerboard, were about a dozen fine white lines, punctuated by small, slightly puckered wound that he recognised as a bullet hole. The bullet hole was relatively fresh only a year or so old, it was still slightly pinkish-brown, but the checkerboards were old scars, years if not decades old.

He swallowed, hard; this was not what he wanted to see. CSI that he was, he wasn't stupid. Checked lines were so clearly evidence of some form of abuse that he immediately knew why she always got too involved in cases of spousal abuse or rape. He flinched away from the R-word; no way would he accept that. She was too strong, too energetic, too… Sara… to take any kind of abuse. It couldn't be. She rolled herself over, back to her back. The bullet hole had gone clean through; there was a mark on her stomach as well. He looked away, this was intruding on her privacy, and she was a very private person. Shaken, he got off the bed and pulled the sheets up over her.     

He went to his linen closet and pulled a spare set of sheets for his couch. This wouldn't be the first time he camped out here. Throwing everything in to the washing machine, Nick grabbed a spare set of boxers and his shaving kit out of the bathroom. He shut the door behind Sara and made a firm resolution to himself not to open it again unless fully dressed and in a true emergency situation. Anything else would tempt him way too far for any normal red-blooded American male. He left some soap, shampoo and a razor on a prominent place on the bathroom counter before he left, God knew what Sara's afternoon routine was, but Nick was pretty sure she'd want a shower when she woke up. 

He pulled a package of taco stuff out of his freezer and set it on the counter to thaw, it would be just about ready when they woke up. Sighing he tried to stretch out on his sofa, ending up with his ankles over the far end. Oh well, he'd live.       


	4. Good Morning Las Vegas

Disclaimer: I don't own it, I don't pretend to own it, and I don't mean to offend anyone's sensibilities.

Thank You: Stelmarta for being there! Mom because I love her!

Special thank you: Duchess of Hell and Saryn this is for ya'll so's I don't keep ya hangin'

Chapter Four

As Sara awoke she immediately became aware of two things: firstly that this was not her bedroom and secondly that she was not in her apartment. This discovery was followed by an investigation into who precisely owned the building she slept in; burying her head in the pillow solved this problem. Only one man in her aquaintance wore Chaps cologne by Ralph Lauren, mixed with Irish Spring soap: Nicholas Stokes. 

Now, becoming alarmingly aware that she was not wearing the clothing that she knew she'd fallen asleep wearing, Sara thought her way through the manner in which she ended up in Nick's bed. Concluding that she'd not did not sleep with the man, nor had he been in the same bed with her, calmed her racing heart somewhat and she was now prepared to face the day. 

Showering was lovely, she decided, and the individual who invented the massage showerhead should be hailed as saviour of humanity. Nick had been incredibly thoughtful, leaving out soap, shampoo, conditioner, a razor, and even a little shower thingy that made lather if you rubbed it with soap and squeezed it. She once again did a mental inventory and concluded that she had not slept with him; his thoughtfulness was simply that, thoughtfulness. More impressed with him this afternoon that she had been last afternoon she decided not to give him a hard time about bringing her to his apartment instead of taking her to her own. Being waited on was divine, an indulgence she rarely got to indulge in.

Feeling human once again, Sara dressed, in the Texas A&M Aggie t-shirt and slightly oversize jeans that were folded neatly on a chair in the bedroom. Not hers, but comfortable, and felt ice water trickle down her back.  He had undressed her, of that she was sure, had he seen the marks that ran down her back? 

They were the evidence of that time long ago when she hadn't been quite as introverted as she was now, not as careful who she associated with, not as discriminating about her boyfriends. Taking a deep breath she forced herself to relax. Even if he had, they were nothing to be ashamed of. All kinds of decent people got hard knocks in life. It wasn't her fault that the school of hard knocks chose to leave a permanent diploma. Was he repulsed by the marking? Or had he resolved to make an issue of it, tell other people about her 'issues' and make her try to 'confront her demons' like a certain other CSI who still resided back home in San Francisco?  

Breathing deeply, she gathered her thoughts and forced her heart rate to settle. Nick was a decent, hardworking, intelligent man. He wouldn't think the less of her if she chose to keep her little secrets secret. He wouldn't use the knowledge to take advantage of her; he wouldn't be like the scum-of-the-earth idiot who'd done that to her back, he didn't think there was anything legal about drugs or take a belt to his women when he was angry.

'No' she said firmly to herself, 'I will not indulge in a pity party. I'm gonna walk out there like a normal human being and be nice because Nick's taken his time and effort to make me comfortable in his home.' Before doubts could cloud her mind she grabbed the doorknob, turned it, and pulled the door open. 

"Hi" her voice was about an octave too high. 

"Hi" 

Nick was standing in front off the kitchen sink, shirt off, with razor in hand and face half-covered in white shaving cream, barefoot.

 "Sleep Ok?"

"Yeah, I did. Thanks. I really appreciate the…stuff" she waved her arm in the vague direction of the bathroom.

 Damn him. Damn the man to hell and back. He had to know what kind of affect pulling his shirt off to bare that magnificent chest had on a woman whose body had treated the male species as an infectious disease for the past ten or so years. The fact that she'd not melted into a puddle at his feet was nothing short of a miracle. Where the hell had these sensations come from? This was Nick, annoying, arrogant, insulting, Don Juan to the last hurrah Nicky.             

"Oh yeah, don't mention it. You looked like you needed a break." He swished the razor in the artificial puddle filling the sink and tilted up his chin "Taco?"

She looked at the stovetop, in a pan was browned taco meat, and on the counter was a pile of limp, shredded lettuce and a cubed tomato. "I don't eat meat"

"I know. There's beans and rice in the other pot."

  Her knees turned to jell-o. "You cooked? You didn't have to cook!"

"Well I did eat your lunch. Besides, I just pulled it out of the freezer and heated it up. It was nothing fancy."  He swished the sink again, "Your stuff's in the dryer. I got most of the bloodstains out of the shirt, but I'm afraid the jeans are a total loss." 

"That's Ok; I don't think I'd wear them again anyhow, but thanks for doing it."

"No problem, I know the feeling." He swished one last time and tapped his steel razor on the metallic edge of the sink. It pinged like a little bell. One hand blindly reached for a dishtowel, Sara plucked one off of the countertop and put it in his hand. He turned and grinned, rubbing the excess shaving cream off his face "Thanks"

Out of nowhere her hands started shaking; her eyes burned with unshed tears, her whole body just started shutting down. The reaction stress of what she'd seen, and done, in the past eighteen hours smacked into her and ran her over like a freight train smashing a penny on the rails.

"Aw, c'mere. I know. It sucks don't it?" Nick folded her into his arms, and shushed her, saying soft, reassuring nonsense while Sara sobbed out her pain and frustration from scientifically analysing the final remains of a horrific scene. Coming back to herself, she just wrapped up in the feeling that she wasn't alone. Nick's arms were around her, his chest hair tickling her arms and neck; he was rocking her, back and forth just like she was a child, and rubbing her back in slow smooth circles. 

Her back. The scars. The little ridged hiccoughs in the rhythm of his hand as he comforted her. Involuntarily she stiffened, muscles going piano string tight. She pulled her head off his shoulder, looking him in the face. They were almost exactly the same height, there was no way she could miss his expression. It was fear, and anger, and worry, but most of all it was sympathetic.

 He knew, he'd seen them, there was no way he could have missed it or she misunderstand his expression. She pushed, just a little, with her hands on his chest and he let her go quickly, backing off and giving her space. 

"Thanks," she whispered, almost saying 'for not mentioning it' in her next breath. 

"No prob" He understood.

Within an hour they were on the road, and within two Sara was being duly impressed with the ATF and the large amount of man hours they'd spent painstakingly re-creating the crime scene from her millions of photographs. 

They'd been digitised, expanded and carefully tacked together in the precise order and at the precise distance that she'd taken them. Walls were simulated by multiple plywood sheets nailed to sawhorses; the ceiling was two-by-fours nailed with foot long square pictures in the gaps. The floor was laid out with precisely four inches of space between photographs. All in all it took up most of the available space in the CSI garage. 

"Wow"

"Thanks," this was ATF special agent James Fredrick Hawkins, called 'Jim' by his friends. "I have to hand it to you, this was a brilliant idea."

"It was Grissom's idea, this way the scene can't get compromised any more than it had." She walked carefully through the field of photos. "This is really incredible."

"Hey they're your pictures."

"Yeah, but it's your work." She surveyed the floor, "Absolutely incredible. Remind me to call on the Federal Government more often if this is what I get."

"Yeah well Mr. Grissom doesn't strike me as the type to accept help all that frequently." Jim said wryly.

"Griss? What? Oh, yeah the court order thing." She picked her way back to the front of the garage. "We've had some bad cases with the Feds, it gets a little…frustrating."

"The Strip Strangler?"

"Was it that obvious?"

"Yeah," he shrugged his shoulders, "We're not all career-minded, power hungry egotistical bastards."

"Sorry" 

"No offence." He shoved his hands in the pockets of his rumpled grey slacks. "Anything else you need done?"

"You got a tape measure?"

"Yeah, sure. It's over there on the table."

"Great." She fetched the measure and a pad of paper and a pencil. 

"You're going to need a hand with that."

"Are you volunteering?"

"I've got two of them" his hands came back out of the slacks and he displayed them for her to inspect. 

"That you do. C'mon."

About ten minutes later, sweating from the lack of air conditioning and the exertion of balancing precisely while holding a small metal tab between thumb and forefinger, Jim raised his head and asked, "What exactly are we doing?"

"Measuring"

"Measuring for what?" 

"Me," she shook hair out of her face and sat back on her ankles. "I'm technically a physicist. I calculate how the little pieces got to where they are and where they were to begin with."

"How does that work?"

"Well given that the scene is a three dimensional canvas, it involves quite a bit of Calculus, but basically I use the laws of the conservation of momentum and trace my way backwards to the point of origin."

"Trying to explain blood spatter spots?" Catherine, looking a great deal more dishevelled than she normally did, set her tool box on the floor in front of the pictures.

"Not too successfully. You wanna take it?"

"Sure," Catherine grabbed her tool box and demonstrated. "Watch me. We push the box five inches this way and ten inches across. It ends up here. We go back to the beginning and push it twenty five inches at an angle of twenty-three and a half degrees and we end up in the same place."

"Yeah, that's triangle vector stuff. A squared plus B squared equals C squared, sine, cosine, tangent, and all that crap."

"Right, now let's add a third dimension." She picked up the box. "Five up, five forewords and five to the right, now, if we can trace this position" she shook the box, "back to this position" she moved it to where she originally placed it, "then we can determine the height, weight, and actions of the person to whom the body part belongs."

"Wow"

"Technically this blood stuff is Catherine's job, but the math that's involved with a scene this big is a bit much for only one person. I was trained to do this, so we're working together. " Sara shrugged her shoulders to clear out the knots.

"What do you usually do?"

"Metallurgical analysis and materials identification," at his blank look she clarified, "I figure out what all the little pieces were made out of and how they got there."

"Remind me to never take the crime lab techs for granted again. Y'all are incredible." 

"We try." Catherine smiled warmly, "Are you up to any more or do you mind going to help Grissom with the bodies?"

"Well, considering that I made a C in math in college I think I'm gonna go check out the bodies and leave you ladies to do the real work, Ok?" he shook his head a little in awe of the task ahead of the two women. 

"Suit yourself." Sara snapped the tape measure shut. "I appreciate the hand" 

"Anytime," He walked in the, blessedly, air-conditioned building that housed the Las Vegas medical examiner's office. A tall black man, Warrick Brown, his mind spit out absently, stopped him.

"Hey you're Special Agent Hawkins, right? Grissom's looking for you; he's in exam room four."

"Thanks, Warrick…right?"

"That's me"

"I'm Jim, ATF," they shook hands, "Which room is room number four?"

"All the way down the end." Warrick pointed to the hallway on the right, "and you might want to breathe a little before you get in there. It's getting a bit whiffy if ya' get my drift."

"Got it"


	5. A Meeting of The Minds

Disclaimer: I don't own it, I don't pretend to own it, and I don't mean to offend anyone's sensibilities.

Thank You: Stelmarta for being there! Mom because I love her!

Chapter Five

Special Agent Jim Hawkins walked into exam room four to meet with Grissom and the chief medical examiner.

 He almost immediately walked right back out and put his head between his knees. Now, he considered himself to be, if not jaded, then at least hardened to that which humans could inflict on themselves and on others. Nothing, nothing in his considerable experience in Federal Law Enforcement had prepared him for the sight in examination room four.

A moment later a man, swathed in surgical greens, joined him outside the room. 

"Here" he handed him an old fashioned dust mask, smeared on two sides with Vicks Vapo-Rub "This will cut down on the smell." 

"Jim Hawkins" he put the mask on over his mouth and nose.

"Gil Grissom" above his surgical mask his eyes were a piercing, bright blue. 

"Wow," Jim breathed in and out rapidly, inhaling the suffocating essence of menthol with each breath, "I have been an ATF agent for twelve years and I have never seen anything like that before, never."

"When I was twenty-two I became the youngest coroner in the history of Los Angeles County. I thought then that I'd seen all that there was to see inflicted on a human body. I know now that isn't the case." He paused, "Are you ready to go back in or do you want to throw up?"

"I think I can make it."

"There's a trash can right inside the door of you change your mind."

"Yeah, I got you." He took another breath of menthol-laden air and followed Grissom into the examination room. What lay on the slab was a human jigsaw puzzle. There were multitudes of little plastic Ziploc baggies and one very fragmented corpse. The temperature in the lab had to be near forty degrees, because Jim could see his breath puffing out slightly from behind the mask. 

"David Robbins, chief medical examiner Las Vegas County Sheriff's department."

"Jim Hawkins, ATF"

"You mind giving us that hand?" his eyes were browner, softer than Gil Grissom's, but no less sharp. He motioned with one blood covered surgical glove, "I think it's on the table over there."

Bile rose behind Jim's throat, but he gamely went over to the evidence table, which was essentially one very large, open-faced, refrigerator. Sure enough there was one, semi-intact hand in a plastic bag on the top.

"Good, bring it over here and well see if we can get some prints off of it." Grissom grabbed his Red Creeper powder and got out a sheet of fingerprint paper. "Has AFIS spit out any missing person's reports that correspond to our bomber?"

"Do we know which one was the bomber?"

"The female Caucasian, she had third degree powder burns and charring all along the abdominal area. The male, Asian, possible Chinese, was killed by bone fragmentation from the female's abdominal area. As a preliminary assessment I'd agree with Sara, the bomb was strapped around the lower abdominal and pelvic areas." Doc Robbins continued to piece together the person on the slab without pause, "I'm also getting some indications of pre-partum injuries in the female. Take that hand for instance." Jim looked closer at the bag he held between thumb and forefinger, "There are ligature marks on the wrist and forearm area. She was restrained, unwillingly, with some type of wire or other metallic type object prior to death."

"She was someone's prisoner?"

"Perhaps, it seems very likely from the evidence, that" Robbins limped over to the evidence table, "she may not have been a willing participant in the bombing."

"So that means we're looking for someone else who did the bombing?"

"No," Grissom motioned for Jim to open the bag and remove the hand "She most definitely exploded in the lobby. There was no one else there. What we need to know now is why she chose to explode herself in the bank lobby; instead of…say jumping off a highway overpass or putting a gun in her mouth and blowing the brains out the back of her head." He took her hand and carefully pressed the fingers on the paper. "Here, take this to Nick over in the lab. Run it through AFIS and the missing person's database. Our female was about five two, hundred and twenty, say, pounds, with brown hair, grayish-blue eyes, white, and lower class to low middle class."

"How do you figure that?"

"Teeth," he said shortly, "Wealthy people get their teeth straightened, cavities filled, wisdom teeth removed. Our bomber had an abscess, three unfilled cavities, and a diastema right," he motioned to his mouth, between the first two teeth "here. She was poor, no dental insurance."

"Oh, Ok." Jim grabbed the paper and left, grateful to remove the mask, with its overpowering reek of menthol. Somehow, even through the menthol mask, he could still smell the stench of death.

Nick Stokes was a handsome SOB with a strong chin and a thing for sweet tea with crushed mint and a splash of Tennessee bourbon for spice. When Jim brought him the fingerprint paper he leaped put of his chair and almost knocked over the glass in his haste to get it done. 

"You're Jim right? I'm Nick." He introduced himself without ever raising his eyes off of the paper. "Wow! You stink. Were you with Grissom and the Doc?"

"Yeah," Jim sighed and pulled up a chair "not a pleasant sight, or smell for that matter."

"You're telling me." He scanned the notes about the female and her Asian partner in death. "Hmm, Sara will get a kick out of being right on this one."

"So Grissom said," Jim collapsed, exhausted, into a chair while Nick started typing up the AFIS reports "She always this dead on?"

"That's a bad pun, man. But yeah, Sara's usually on the money." 

"Hey, are you talkin' 'bout me?"

"Mmm hmm" Nick turned his head and grinned, "You were right, again."

"Let's see. White female, yadda, yadda, yadda, um…ligature marks?" she looked up sharply, "She was restrained?"

"So it seems. Your medical examiner thinks the injuries were pre-bomb in nature. I'm thinking abused girlfriend or wife, wants to get even, finds some explosives, and pays her hubby a visit at work." Jim leaned back in his chair, "Or it could have been a botched robbery attempt and she was just a random hostage. Has anyone checked the vault lately? Maybe someone 'borrowed' a stack of bills during the confusion."

"Y'know what that's a good idea. Brass is bringing some witnesses in tomorrow.  I'm gonna talk with the manager. We'll see if everything checks out." Nick slapped Jim on the back, "Nice work"

"There's still the weapon angle. That explosive was pretty powerful. I haven't got the lab results back, but I doubt it was something that you could just pick up. We might be able to trace it back to a single seller." Sara leaned back against the table and picked up Nick's glass of tea. "Gagggh. Ugh, gross, what the hell did you put in this? It makes my teeth hurt just thinking about it." 

"Sugar, tea, mint, and ice, what else goes in sweet tea?"

She sniffed the glass; she could barely catch the faint scent of the Bourbon, knowing that Nick could get in some deep do-do if he was caught with alcohol on duty she brushed it off in front of the ATF agent. "Icky, that's some nasty stuff. Remind me to never drink out of your glass again."

Jim got up out of his chair, rubbing his eyes, "Well, you might be used to working through the night but I'm bushed. See you in the morning."

"Yeah, bye" She waited until he was gone and set the glass down with a sharp click "Bourbon? On duty- Nick? You know better than that."

"It's not much." She raised her eyebrows warningly, "I know, it's not allowed, but I got a real nasty one off of the day shift. Two kids sexually abused, one of them kills himself and helps to kill his brother too. They drank antifreeze because their Dad locked them in the garage."

"Oh God" Sara sat back in her seat. Blindly she reached for the tea glass and swallowed a gulp, quickly "What the hell is wrong with the world, Nick?"

"Got me" He shared the glass with her, taking a sip and forcing it down, "but you see why I'm having a little bit of a nightcap tonight?"

"You could have at least waited until the shift was over." She shuddered "Why do we do this, Nick? Does it make any good to scrape someone's guts off of other people just to tell them the obvious?"

"It's gotta be good for something, because right now I don't know if I should just go home and crawl back under the blankets or go over to the lockup and beat the crap out of the man." The last bit came out in an exasperated tone, almost chuckling. He shook his head and tilted up the sweet tea, lightly laced with bourbon. 

"I'll flip you for it" she winked, "Besides, I like your bed."

Nick almost choked on the mouthful of tea he inhaled when she said that. Sending a disbelieving glance her way he found Sara ginning like a madwoman, her eyes alight and sparking. She was teasing him. It was an expression of hers he was all too familiar with. Well it took two to tango. 

"I like you in my bed too."

He meant the words to come out humorously, but somehow they got tangled up with emotion in the run from his brain to his mouth. Her glimmer of humor died away, replaced by something a good deal more intense. 

"You're serious aren't you?"

 Her voice was softer, more emphatic. Shifting uncomfortably in his chair, Nick couldn't quite meet her eyes. Unlike her normal, open face her eyes were now inscrutable, completely unreadable, nothing more than dark brown pools. This was not how he envisioned a conversation of this magnitude happening.

"I uh, well, yeah. I guess I am." Something about her impenetrable gaze really unnerved him, "I like being around you Sara. I liked taking care of you last night, when you were all burned out." He forced himself to face her, look at her squarely "I don't mean to push, t-t-that's the furthest thing in my mind, but well yeah, I do like the thought of you in my bed."

"Nick the Don Juan of Dallas is stuttering in front of a woman." She smiled, privately, just for the two of them. "Perish the thought."

"Hey," he said defensively, "you started it. I was more than willing to let this go naturally."

"Go where? Your apartment? Mine?" She sat back; sober as a priest, "I won't go to bed with you. I won't be another notch or your bedpost."

"Now I never said that," he was getting angry, how dare she think that he would be so careless with her, "Y'know, contrary to popular belief, I don't just jump from woman to woman like some damn Casanova. I'm not that…"

"Conceited? Arrogant? Uh, vain?"

"No," he said slowly, not liking the way this was going, "Careless."

Another spark flew between them; this time it was understanding. Thoughtfully she took back the tea and finished off the last mouthful. Sara was about to say something when she was interrupted from behind. 

"Hey guys, what are you two up to?"

Without missing a beat Sara folded the manila envelope containing the profiles of the victims and handed them to Warrick "Jane and John Doe, on the anniversary of their thirty sixth hour in united in death."

"Ugh, do you have to be so morbid?"

"It's a morbid case."

"Amen," Warrick skimmed the profiles, "Nothing new here, looks like your hunch was right on the money. It was Jane Doe that exploded; Mr. Doe was just passing by, poor guy." He looked up and tossed back the folder, "Catherine's got Greg working on the blood analysis; you wanna come with me to give him a little 'encouragement'?"

"Sure, I got some fragments Griss and Doc Robbins pulled out of the bodies. No time like the present."

"I got the prints and profiles running through AFIS, I'll check back with you if we get any hits." Nick rubbed his hand over his stubbly hair, more than a little distracted by how easily Sara slipped from a personal conversation with him to a professional one with Warrick with no sign of discomfort.

"Great," Warrick said, "c'mon Sara, let's go play 20 questions with Greg." 

She got up out of the chair next to him, sliding the empty glass onto the tabletop beside the computer. In the split second while Warrick's back was to them she brushed a hand over his shoulder and squeezed it. He got the message; they'd deal with this later.  

                
   


	6. A Reading of the Minds

Disclaimer: I don't own it, I don't pretend to own it, and I don't mean to offend anyone's sensibilities.

Thank You: Stelmarta for being there! Mom because I love her!

Special Thank You: Duchess of Hell and Saryn for the wonderful reviews

Chapter Six

Warrick never understood why they called the interrogation room a 'fishbowl'. Intellectually he knew that observing someone while they couldn't see or hear you kind of put them in a fishbowl, but who the hell thought up such a crazy idea? It was probably a CSI on duty too many hours with too much coffee and not enough breaks.

 He was the requisite CSI sitting in on interrogation while Brass ran through as many people he could find that were placed at the scene during the time of the explosion. He was supposed to be looking for evidence, of what he wasn't all that sure, but Grissom sent him here and he went as the boss demanded. 

"So Mr. Fitzpatrick you were in the line for the teller. You had your back to the incident, but had seen the suspect before you turned around. Is that right?"

"Yes, I uh, well she was a pretty little thing I just sent me eye around a bit, if you know what I'm saying." Mr. Fitzpatrick was visiting from London. He had been in the process of getting pounds exchanged for dollars when the explosion happened. 

"Can you describe her?"

"About five foot flat, um, she wore a dress, flowery bit, an' sandals. She looked a tad on the plump side, but still pretty fair."

"Thank you Mr. Fitzpatrick, anything else you remember, anything at all."

"No really, sir, I wasn't paying too much attention 'till everything hit the fan, if you get me drift." 

"Thank you."

"Anytime, I have to give you yanks some credit, I been real impressed with the way you've handled this, especially in the wake of the September eleventh attack."

"What were you expecting, FBI agents smoking cigarettes and shining lights in you face?" Brass asked wryly.

"Well…"

"This isn't a terrorist attack Mr. Fitzpatrick; someone just watched too many hours of Headline News and got a crazy idea." Brass got up to let the man out of the room, "even if it was, which thank God it wasn't, we can actually behave ourselves in a civilized manner. Even Americans can be polite."

"So I see, well I hope I was of some assistance Mr. Brass"

"Every little bit counts," Brass let him out of the room and turned to the invisible window on the right side of the room. "Well?"

"Nothing. Crazy Brits," Warrick punched the intercom button. "Who's next?"

"Ooo we're getting to the good stuff here, bank manager, security guys, and the closest person we could find from the scene" Brass slumped back down in his chair. "Grissom wants in on this lot, something about evidence and impressions."

"Well that's Grissom for you," The door to the fishbowl opened, in popped Sara, who'd been out processing spatters.

"Hey War, what's up?"

"Thirty seven people who said they didn't notice anything until the crap hit the fan. Three people who noticed nothing suspicious about our perp, and two people who said she was plump, pretty, and wearing a blue cotton dress." 

"Oh boy, I can hardly breathe but for the excitement. At least this lot is supposed to be more interesting." She plopped down into one of the red plastic chairs in the observation room and propped her feet up on the window ledge. Today she'd chosen a red turtleneck sweater and black khaki's. She wore her omnipresent black boots and was twisting her hair into a clumsy ponytail. It was a far cry from the oversize guy jeans and Aggie t-shirt Warrick knew she'd worn after her unexpected tête-à-tête in Nick's apartment.

"So," he leaned casually back on the wall "Never knew you were an Aggie fan."

"A what?" her booted feet slipped and slammed into the floor.  

"Texas A&M, the Aggies, if I'm not mistaken that's Nick's alma mater." Warrick oh-so casually dropped into the seat beside her.

"Hey, my stuff was all messy and he loaned me some clothes. Don't go reading into things." He watched her expressions. They worked together a lot; Grissom claimed that their styles meshed really well. Warrick sometimes fancied that he knew almost every expression on her face, from disgust and anger to happiness and satisfaction at a job well done. This one was that deer-in-the-headlights look Sara got when she was stalling for time to think up an excuse. Interesting, he mused, very interesting.

"I didn't say I was reading into anything, but Nicky-boy might be." Her ears all but twitched in their eagerness for more information. 

Aha, Warrrick thought, that got the perky little radar stations up and running. Her eyes briefly widened, her nostrils flared, and by God if she didn't start to breathe shallowly and much faster. 

"What that supposed to mean?" Her tone was sharp and dismissive. Ok, she was taking the confrontational knack, but her voice was still a little too airy, and it was pitched a bit high too. Bingo.

"I'm just saying that he doesn't loan that t-shirt out for anyone who walks in the door. He won it off a frat brother in a bull riding contest. There was a Big Time macho thing goin' on there."

"Bull riding?"

"Yup, the same frat buddy who lost his shirt to him also owned a ranch down in Midlothian. The whole lot of them went down during the summer break and did cow herding. I wouldn't be surprised if he could saddle up and ride real well." He deliberately pitched his voice lower for that last innuendo and had the satisfaction of seeing her eyes dilate and colour begin to flush into her cheeks. "Well I gotta get going; Griss wants that security tape done before the next shift."

Warrick pushed his way out of the observation room and was accosted by an eagerly waiting Catherine just feet from the swinging door.

"Well?" she asked eagerly, tapping her foot. "Did they?"

"Nope," Warrick grinned, triumphant, "but there is definitely something going on between them and of a not-just-friendly manner."

"Damn," she cursed "how much do I owe you."

"I believe we agreed on twenty."

"Bloodsucking vampire," she insulted him cheerfully, digging in her purse "I coulda sworn they'd gone ahead with it. The man's practically salivating. Are you absolutely sure?"

"See for yourself," he said amicably, "but I'm tellin' ya: they didn't do it."

"Damn it, what's it gonna take? I have half a mind to lock them in the fishbowl and steal their clothes. I could have sworn that sending them home together after that scene would do the trick, but man, are they stubborn."

"Chill Cath, you know Sara. She's got that fight or flight thing going on for her. If she's not running as fast as she can, then she's gonna rip out his hair if he gets too close. She's like Grissom, shuts down like a steel trap if you get too personal." Warrick settled against the wall, "Nick's acting pretty strange too, all restless and crap. She's driving him nuts and he can't stop it."

"If he can't get her to open up a bit and relax then no one can. I swear he's the next most charming guy in the world"

"And who would the first be?" Warrick grinned and arched his brows.

"You, Warrick Brown, and you damn well know it." She sighed in a frustrated tone, handing him the bill "I don't think I've bet on a couple since High School." She glared, but she still smiled cheerfully in return, "Go ahead and wish me luck, I'm going to go shake some sense into her if it's the last thing I do."

Warrick did nothing more than chuckle, as Catherine stalked into the fishbowl. He wouldn't want to be in Sara's shoes at this moment. Affectionate and caring Catherine may be, but she was as tenacious as a bulldog and twice as mean. Nick and Sara would end up together if only to get Catherine to quit bugging them about it.

  Sense was not to be shaken in, Warrick's off the cuff analogy was apt, Sara was more like Grissom than anyone but the man himself. Catherine had the benefit of knowing Gil for years; she could read his moods as easily as her own. For all intents and purposes, however, Sara was no more readable than a concrete wall. They spent two hours in the observation room with no more than four words spoken that weren't strictly work related, essentially "Hey Catherine, what's up"

Sara was absorbed, almost entirely, on her last conversation with Nick. She wasn't so stupid that she missed Warrick's innuendo any more than her involuntary response to it. That he had noticed didn't bother her quite as much as she thought it would. In fact she was in the process of convincing herself to maybe use him as a sort of sounding board. He knew more about Nick's personal life than she did, and, scarily enough, she trusted him. The only stumbling bock she could see was her own, admitted, inexperience with personal relationships and general distrust of the whole "boyfriend/girlfriend/significant other" idea itself. 

Somehow, someway, Nick Stokes had got her scheming little hormones to sit up and take notice after almost a decade of repression. It wasn't that she'd hadn't had a date in ten years, she wasn't that far gone, but the last man she'd really taken a shine to turned out to quite a bit more of a handful than she expected, and that was being kind about it. Nick was different though, she'd known him much better and trusted him a lot farther than she'd trusted any man, except Grissom, but he didn't really count. Not in the way she was thinking. 

She was in fact thinking so deeply about the whole situation that it took Catherine's urgent poking to draw her out of her little brown study to what was actually going on in the world. 

"Hey! Sara! Hello? Earth to Sara, please respond" 

"Hmm?" she murmured. 

"Where the hell have you been?"

"Right here, why?" Catherine rolled her eyes. 

"Gil's doing something funny; I can't quite place it though. It's like he's trying to send us a message, but not want anyone to know about it." 

"Catherine, I've know him long enough to know that if he wants us to see something we'll see it, and if he doesn't then we're just screwed anyhow because he can't define it well enough to project. If he can't do it, no one can." 

Sara slid back in her chair and not so incidentally, her thoughts, although paying more attention to Grissom's bizarre behaviour now, than she'd been doing before. 

Catherine was caught for a second, reminded about just how little she knew about Gil's relationship with Sara. They sometimes acted like two halves of a very odd whole, and Gil's praise of her, while never effusive, was nonetheless representative of more true admiration and respect than sometimes Catherine thought Gil showed her. There was a level of trust in that relationship unparalleled anywhere else in CSI, and it threw her sometimes that she considered herself one of Gil's closest friends, yet knew next to nothing about the 'other woman' in his life. 

"His hands" Sara said suddenly, "there's something funny about his hands."

"What? Did he cut himself or is he pointing or what?"

"Not his hands, like physically, it's the way he's using them. Look at the witness." Sara slid forewords, "It's like he's counter-punching or…his hands that's it! Catherine look at the witness's hands! Right there on his right front knuckle, it's a fight bite. He hasn't said anything about a physical confrontation; Griss wants us to check it out."

"How? We're here, he's there, and we don't even know if Grissom wants us in there at all anyhow."

"I got an idea, hold on."        

  Caught in a cyclone of Sara Sidle assumptions, subliminal messaging, and intuitive leaps, Catherine could just sit there as Sara raced out of the observation room to a destination unknown. She watched again, looking for signs of whatever it was Sara'd seen but saw only Grissom, acting more than a little oddly, even beyond his usual quota of weird.


	7. The Sting

Disclaimer: I don't own it, I don't pretend to own it, and I don't mean to offend anyone's sensibilities.

Thank You: Stelmarta for being there! Mom because I love her!

Special Thank You: Duchess of Hell and Saryn for the wonderful reviews

Chapter Seven

Catherine was more than a little disturbed as Sara rushed off to God-knew-where to satisfy some psudo-subliminal messaging she may or may not have received from Grissom while he was locked up in the fishbowl with a suspect. She seemed to know what it was all about, though, and that was a little disturbing as well. There were telepathic CSI floating around Vegas, well hell, never a dull moment in this office. 

"Oh, hey Gil, sorry about bumping in to your interview, but I need to borrow your manager for a second." Aha, Catherine thought to herself, Sara never calls him Gil; she calls him Mr. Grissom, Professor Grissom, just plain Grissom, and Griss, but never Gil. The game is now afoot.

"We're in the middle of something Sara" He looked vaguely annoyed, and sharply dismissive, in other words: Classic Grissom.

"It'll only be a sec, OK? I'm working prints with Nick, we need to ID some unknowns off of the main vault and want to eliminate some of the people we know had access." Sara, wearing an oversize man's dress shirt, not hers, stained with fingerprint powder and ink, slammed her kit down on the table "I'm assuming you've never been arrested before, printed, or what have you -- right?"

"Um, yeah" the suspect, a lean man, early forties, jet black hair, strong cheekbones but a rather weak chin, sent a puzzled look to his lawyer. 

"Excuse me, Miss…"

"Sidle, Sara Sidle" she continued getting the papers and ink rollers ready.

"Miss Sidle, my client's fingerprints are listed in his employee file with the bank. Is this examination really necessary?"

"No, not really, it's just that the FBI has the personnel files from the bank. It'll be about ten times quicker if I can get him taken care of now, then wait 'till tomorrow night or the next day for the info. We can get him out of the way and on with life today, instead of a week from now." Sara poured out the ink expertly and slicked a roller with it. 

"Hands"

Mr. Angel Gutierrez, manager of the Wells Fargo, shrugged at his lawyer and stuck them out for inspection. 

It was Catherine's opinion that the hands, not the eyes were the windows to the soul. You could tell a lot about a person from his hands. Were they rough or smooth? Left or right handed? Calloused, scraped, bruised or fine, delicate and graceful? What people did with those hands was reflected on the appendages themselves. There was always something sinister about a slick-fingered, two bit hustler, it was the same as a murderer although not nearly as refined. His were manicured, worked, but not quite rough, and marred with an ugly mark on the right front knuckle. 

"Ouch, that looks bad" Sara flipped the hand over to examine the 'fight-bite'. "Here, I'm always getting myself cut up, one way or another" Before anyone could say anything about it, Sara dropped some clear liquid on the cut and swabbed the liquid, blood, and some excess fluid from the knuckle before wrapping it in light gauze and a sterile pad. "You really ought to get that looked at," she commented, throwing the dirty cotton ball and sterile wrapper into the trashcan in the corner. "Infections can be a bitch"

"Are you done?" Grissom said, sounding as annoyed as ever.

"Yup," Sara grinned cheerfully, "Thanks for the time"

She left and the questioning continued as though it had never been interrupted. Sara jumped back into the observation room, still carrying the kit and wearing the stained dress shirt.

"What was that all about?"

"Shhh" she said, as if they could hear her, "You'll see in a minute." The interview concluded with as little fanfare as possible, handshakes all around, and a self-satisfied bank manager with protestations of goodwill and support. He and his lawyer left the room, closed the door behind them, Grissom stood up, stretched out his neck and grinned widely and gave a thumbs up to the invisible audience. 

Catherine and Sara both rushed into the fishbowl, "Sara, remind me to give you a raise. That was a perfect idea." Gil shook his head in admiration, "Positively perfect."

 "What the hell was that all about?" Catherine was dying to know what was so important about Sara fingerprinting a man whose fingerprint would be on file and accessible anyhow.

"This," Gil took of the cover of the trash can in the fishbowl, and delicately removed the dirty cotton ball, stained with the residue of the fight bite. "Sara…."

"I know, I'll run it down to Greg and see if we get something out of it." Sara sealed the cotton ball in a little baggie and raced off to the lab, grinning like a madwoman.

"You obtained a DNA sample" understanding began to dawn in Catherine's mind, "You want to know who he was fighting; you think it has something to do with this."

"I find it curious that  a manager of a well respected and successful bank finds it within himself to physically assault an individual just hours before or directly after his bank is bombed in a most, ah, demonstrative manner." Grissom left the fishbowl, followed by Catherine and Brass. "It speaks to me of a rather heated and very private disagreement. One heated enough to detonate an explosive in the lobby of his bank."

"Wild," Brass remarked, seeing the sense in Grissom's reasoning, "We'll get in on his acquaintances right away." He angled himself down a corridor, heading for the main precinct building of Las Vegas PD.

"Well, you're lucky Sara understood what you were trying to do. You had me running for a loop." Catherine remarked.

"I was trying to do something?"

"You mean you weren't waving your hands around like that on purpose?"

"No," he stopped, "Why?"

"Then how did you know what she was planning on doing?'

"It made sense to obtain a sample; I assumed she saw the mark through the observation window, I was going to do something myself, but then Sara walked in wearing a different shirt. Then she called me 'Gil' and she never does that. Therefore, she was putting on a pretense of some kind and I played along."

"You know," Catherine said, exasperated, "the two of you drive me nuts. If you're not reading her mind, then she's reading yours. It's like some bad episode of Star Trek. What the hell is going on between you two?"

"Nothing, we just work well together." Grissom sounded almost puzzled at her outburst. "She's an excellent CSI"

"Yeah, well you and I work well together, and I don't finish your sentences."

"Then perhaps we need to work on our telepathy. What am I thinking right now?"

"I don't want to know." Catherine walked back over to the break room, turning at the door "You scare me sometimes, you know that?"

Grissom smiled, and turned back into his office.

"Hey, pssst, hey!" Nick snuck up on Sara in the lab, Greg had gone on some bizarre errand for Warrick and she was left with the processing until he got back.

"Huh?" Sara turned around startled, and came face to face with him, wearing his undershirt, which also had ink stains down the front. "What do you want?"

"My shirt, for starters, but that can wait." He tucked his hands up on her shoulders and read the printout the spectrograph machine spit up. "What are you up to?"

"Mmmm," she shrugged his hands off her shoulders, but undaunted he kept them near. "I'm trying to ID the explosive. Not having much luck."

"What's wrong?" His hands found a niche on her neck, cupping the stiff muscle and beginning to gently knead.

"The scene got so contaminated between the explosion and our arrival that isolating a single compound out of the debris is almost impossible. There's everything in here: dust, dirt, blood, other bodily fluids, rocks, floor polish, hell there's even some Clorox. The explosive had to be a petroleum based substance, because there's no trace of plastic explosive, but isolating it out of the mess is damn near impossible." She reached up again, this time removing his grasp manually. 

"So you're trying to differentiate between cleaning products and explosive devices?" His fingertips slipped out of hers and slid back under the collar of his shirt that she was still wearing. 

"Yup, and it's harder than it looks. They must have just had the floor done; there are extremely high concentrations of cleaning solvents in this crap." She now leaned back, unthinkingly, into his grasp, relaxing into the gentle massage. 

"Hmm, I'll check it out; maybe if we can get a fix on the exact product they use we can filter out the extraneous crud and really get down to the explosive." She tilted back her head to look him gratefully in the eyes.

"Thanks." The hundred watt grin that never failed to make him grin back appeared.

"One condition" he warned, looking to capitalize on her momentary lapse in active resistance to his attentions. 

"Name it" she wasn't really paying too much attention to anything but her shoulders and the rapidly approaching buttery status.

"Let me buy you breakfast after the shift."

"Done. I hope you brought your wallet, I'm starved."

"Yeah I bet. You're as skinny as a rail. I need to fatten you up a bit." That elicited the response he was expecting, she sat up and swiveled in the chair she was seated in to face him.

"And what's that supposed to mean?" She said tartly.

"I like my women…curvy." His eyes twinkled, teasing her gently.

 "I'm not your woman" she said archly, turning her back to him.

"Now" He put both of his hands on her waist and felt her go tense and taught under them. She squirmed out of the gentle embrace and swiveled her chair back to face him, a little unsettled at his gentle, but persistent attention. 

"Are you always this arrogant?" she said the words in a challenging manner, but took his hands in her own and played with the ink stained fingers, much larger than her own slender hands. 

"You're wearing my shirt for the second day in three." He tugged on the tail of the clothing in question. "Isn't that enough?"

"Hey, I needed a convincing disguise. You want it back?" She reached for the buttons, but he stopped her with his hands over hers. 

"No, keep it. I can't wear it back to work anyhow; the fingerprint ink is all over the front. Besides, you look good in my clothes." He grinned, teasing her again.

"Thanks," she flushed but then regained equilibrium, "Now get out of here. I got work to do."

"Remember…breakfast."

"Shoo" Sara turned back to the job at hand, trying to not replay Nick's words in a circle over and over again in her mind.

"Hey, where's Greggo?" Catherine slid into the lab; unbeknownst to Sara and Nick she'd seen their encounter reflected in the glass back to the computer lab, although she hadn't heard their conversation. The urge to ask warred with the knowledge that Sara was such a private person, and tact won, although it was a hard fought fight. Not to mention she'd have to explain her little bit of espionage.

"Out," Sara explained, "he's wrapping up something for the Northside 405 with Warrick. I'm taking care of the samples," Sara sighed, "Not that I'm having much luck."

"Contaminated?"

"Yeah," she stood up to pace around the length of the lab, "I don't get it. There was no gunpowder, no C-4 or C-7, no fertilizer or ammonia/methanol based explosive. And event the petroleum residue doesn't fit the profile, it's just floor wax and some other oil based distillate. I mean its oil wax, it's a lot of oil wax, but how complicated can it get? They gotta clean the floor on a regular basis."

"Ok, how do you make a bomb?"

"What?"

"Let's think I'm the suspect, and I want to make a bomb. How do you do it?" Catherine sat in the chair that Sara just vacated. "Remember, lower class, high school level education, bare minimum of chemistry and physics, and no plastic or ammonia/methane or gunpowder"

"And it's gotta be small enough to strap to the waist." Sara leaned against the wall, and sighed "Enclosed container, maybe an aerosol can or compressed something or other. But that doesn't have enough kick to spread intestine quite as far as it did. Um, damn, no gunpowder makes it rough, let's see…electrical maybe? No, we'd have more physical remains off the bomb." Sara leaned on the evidence counter, absently fiddling with one of the machines, as if to coax the answers she was looking for. 

"MOMMY!!!" a screaming bundle of joy raced into the lab and upended Catherine in a furious hug. Behind her a middle age ex-husband, well known and loathed by all the CSI, waved his goodbye and exited quickly. There was no need to court trouble. "Hey guess what mommy? Guess what, guess what?"

"What, sweetheart?" Catherine fielded the invasion gracefully, pulling Lindsay up on her lap and tucking her into the crook of one arm. Sara squirmed a little on the inside, kids always made her a little nervous. It wasn't that she didn't like them, but she wasn't quite sure what they expected her to do with them.

"Mommy look at my safety poster" Lindsay dragged a huge poster board out of her backpack, "The contest is today for the best one."

"Oh that's lovely, I'm sure it'll do very well Lindsay." The energetic child slipped off of her mother's lap and raced to the doorway.

"Where are Mr.Gwissom and Uncle Wawick and Nicky-pie? I wanna show them my poster too!" she was all but leaping in her excitement.

"That's Mr. Gr-iss-om, Mr. Brown and Mr. Stokes to you little lady." Catherine moved to intercept her progeny at the point of escape and turned her around at the door, "And aren't you forgetting someone?"

"Oh!" Undaunted by the admonishment, she turned around and for the first time realized that her Mother wasn't the only one in the room. "Good Morning Miss Sidle." She said in her best 'company manners' tone. 

"Morning" Sara grunted. There was no need to correct her 'nickname', Sara thought cynically, I don't have one.

"Do you wanna see my poster?" Lindsay said carefully, as if Sara would bite if offended or approached.

"Sure," Lindsay gingerly walked over and unfurled the large poster board in front of Sara's face. "See, look, there's soap an' bathroom stuff an' spray cans an' stuff an' I put them way up so's little kids don't get to them. And look I put the 'Don't Throw in Fire' an' 'Don't Mix Up' signs on there too."

Sara examined the crude artwork carefully. "Don't mix up, huh?"

"Yup, my teacher, Miss Jenny, said that if you mix up the wrong ones bad stuff happens. You could get sick from the smell or they could even go boom."

"Boom" Sara repeated, suddenly her mind flew light years ahead of the second grade safety poster. "That's it! Boom! " Sara unthinkingly wrapped both of her rather long arms around Lindsay's middle and straight lifted her up into the air and shook her like a rag doll. "That's perfect, it's inexpensive, it's powerful, and it's easily accessible. Jesus, how did I miss that! "

"Sara, put her down. She's turning purple" the mother, always concerned, saw that her daughter was beginning gasp from the combination of the squeeze and the shake. "What did you miss?"

"Cleaning products!" Sara pried Lindsay's' arms form their protective grasp around her neck and put her down. "Remember the 'contents under pressure' and 'highly flammable keep away from flame' labels? Mix the wrong things with some aerosol cans, shake them, and strap them to your waist. All you got to do is wait for the pressure to build enough and" she made a popping sound with her mouth "bye, bye, birdie"

"That's insane"

"Yeah, but it works," Sara, now energized re-read the printouts. "How much you willing to bet they didn't clean the floor just before the attack? This stuff was the explosive." She shook the papers. "Any two bit website will give you instructions on how to make an aerosol bomb. Add some oil based polish or wax and you've got a flame ball big enough to scatter guts from here to Reno." 

"Well little lady," Catherine gave her gasping daughter a hug, "Looks like you've helped in your first case. Congratulations"

"You mean I got it right?"

"Yup"

"Woohoo!" she shouted, "wait 'till I tell Gwissom!" and she sped down the hall to his office with her Mom in close pursuit.

  
  



	8. Grissom's little Mistake

Disclaimer: I don't own it, I don't pretend to own it, and I don't mean to offend anyone's sensibilities.

Thank You: Stelmarta for being there! Mom because I love her!

Special Thank You: Duchess of Hell and Saryn for the wonderful reviews

Author Note: I made this bomb stuff up completely with warning labels and loose Third Grade Chemistry – Please don't try it at home. I doubt it will even work. I also borrowed the phrase 'Psychic woo-woo' from my dear friend Nora Roberts. I thought it was funny. 

Chapter Eight

It was crunch time. Media was getting fanatic, every nation news station in America had the cameras pointed at he CSI exit/entrance. When Sara and Nick tried to go out to IHOP for breakfast they were tailed by so many news vans and reporters that Sara almost decked a journalist for asking the same question six times in a row. It was time for a brainstorming session. 

FBI Special Agent Brad Culpepper, ATF Agent James Hawkins, the CSI gang, Doc Robbins, and Brass were all lined up in the CSI situations room to piece together what they had of the puzzle. 

"OK people" Grissom started off, "Let's begin with a timeline. 5:47 P.M. as yet unidentified Jane Doe # 13 arrives in the Wells Fargo. Security video show that she remained inside the building for approximately forty five seconds before detonating an explosive device strapped to her midsection, killing John Doe # 26 almost instantaneously. Blood and, um, other debris goes flying. Police reach the scene at approximately 5:56 P.M. and CSI at 6:02. Crime scene is now sealed."

"Working on I.D for the victim and the perp," Warrick now took center stage. "Female aged about thirty to thirty five, Hispanic or Latino, five two, hundred and fifteen pounds, give or take, lower class, and as yet we've got three hits off AFIS for her profile. We're going to bring some people in to ID the body after we're done here.  The next one is Male, Asian, probably Chinese, twenty-something, mid to upper class. We got that from his medical treatments, apparently he had his appendix and tonsils removed. Doc tells me this was a high quality procedure, quality equals money. One hit off AFIS, family's waiting to ID."

"We believe he was incidental. Blood spatter indicates he was not the bomber and this is consistent with the physical evidence. The female was the one with the bomb, strapped to her midsection," Sara stood and removed a wrapped lump form her kit. "This is a rough estimate of what it was composed of and the likely arrangement of components." 

She set, gently as not to jar the contents a weight-lifting belt, with three aerosol cans of WD-40, strapped to the front, stripped of the spray tops and plugged with a drop of candle wax. They were enclosed in a clear plastic Ziploc bag, sealed with Duct tape, and the bag was filled with a clear liquid. There was a strongly 'pine fresh' scent to it. A nine volt battery floated in the mix. 

"You have got to be kidding me!" Culpepper leaned back in his chair laughing; "Duct tape, WD-40, and Pine Sol!" he slammed a hand down on the counter "Don't quit your day job, Sidle."

"Actually from a strictly chemical perspective she's dead on," Jim quietly supported Sara, "What she didn't add was this" he lifted up a small syringe of a light blue liquid. "Poke this in and seal the hole, and ten minutes later the chemicals will eat through the wax plug on the tip of the cans, and set of an exponential gaseous expansion. The cans will burst and create a massive fireball as they go, once they hit the juices in the battery."

"It's crude, but the supplies are ridiculously easy to get and I got the instructions off the internet. All I had to do was put it together, and a Kindergartener could follow the directions." Sara sat back down, "Compact, powerful, and easy to manufacture. No shrapnel, although it wouldn't have affected the outcome if she'd stuck a handful of nails in the bag, or a couple of bullets. The fireball pretty much destroys the evidence. All we got were unidentifiable metal fragments from the cans and the chemical residue. Anyone with a grudge and a decent supply of cleaning equipment could pop this sucker out. It's totally untraceable."

"Great," muttered Nick, "How the hell are we going to track this fu-person" he quickly corrected himself, mid-swear.

"Therein lay the rub." Catherine grinned, "However it just so happens that the DNA sample telepathically obtained by our own Sara, from the manager, matches identically with the saliva from our bomber." She twinkled her eyes at Grissom.

"Telepathically?" Brad scoffed, "what the hell's that supposed to mean?" Subtlety went straight over his head.

"It's a long story," Grissom cut off Catherine, who was cheerfully about to explain "Brass?"

"I done my homework." Brass held up a thick manila envelope, "the list of all the people in and around Vegas that might have a grudge with our friend." 

 "Holy crapola!" Warrick exclaimed.

"Amen," said Catherine, "Not a very popular guy was he?"

"Nope," Brass remarked, "apparently he had some very high profile and high risk investments, in some, uh, other-than-legal activities."

"Well seems as though it didn't make him any friends." Nick observed.

"Apparently not, I got my boys working on it now, we'll see if anything drops out of the mix."

"My turn," Robbins said quietly, not standing, but still commanding attention "obviously the bodies are in less than ideal condition for a post mortem. Warrick pretty much covered what I got as far as identification, however, I believe I'd mentioned this to most of you: the female had some sort of restraints applied to her wrists and ankles. On completion of my analysis, I also observed some substantial hemotoma on the face and arms. Skin analysis proved that the facial hemotoma was covered in makeup; evidently the marks came before the bombing. Based on the ligature marks and the hemotoma, I would conclude that our female was, at some recent point, physically assaulted and restrained. There's not much left of her pelvic area, so I can't rule out a sexual assault, but someone definitely had a grudge with our Jane Doe."

"Can you conclude what the restraints were comprised of?" Grissom asked.

"Yes and no," Robbins replied easily, "They were metallic in origin, bracketing the wrists at approximately…well, here" he removed a photo from the file folder in front of him. "This is what remains of her wrist." He passed it to Grissom.

          Grissom looked at it and was on the point of saying something and passing it back to Robbins when he stopped and handed the photo to Sara. Surprised, she arched an eyebrow at him, but accepted the glossy 8x10.

"Handcuffs," she said almost instantaneously, just glancing at the picture "cheap ones, novelty store stuff." She made eye contact with Grissom and for a moment the two of them shared an intense gaze, communicating something that went completely over the heads of the gathered assembly.

"All right," Culpepper said exasperated, "I can handle cleaning product bombs, I'll ignore the psychic woo-woo crap, but if the Las Vegas county medical examiner says he can't identify the ligature, what the hell expertise do you have that gives you the right to just arbitrarily say 'handcuff'?"

Sara glared at Grissom, evidently angry that he forced the issue. "I know what I'm talking about Agent Culpepper."

"Yeah right, you're showboating, trying to solve this of the seat of your pants." he said challengingly.

Sara responded by snapping off her wrist watch and holding her hand up, elbow braced on the table. On the pale strip of skin, protected from the sun by the wide watchband, were several fine white lines. She shoved the glossy photo at Culpepper. "They were handcuffs. Believe me. I know."

"What, you into a little S & M Miss Sidle?" the FBI agent leered.

"Ten years ago my boyfriend chained me to a pipe in the utility room of my apartment and beat the shit out of me. He was so high on coke that they found him OD'd right there when someone heard my screams." She growled, "I know handcuff marks."

Culpepper slammed back from the table. "I thought you people were strange, but man does this take the cake." He got up and jerked the door open. "Call me when you quit the Penn and Teller routine and have some real information to give. We're out of here." He motioned to Hawkins, who shrugged apologetically and left with his nominal commander.

"I'm outta here, you don't need me for this." Brass muttered, he and Robbins left, giving Sara sympathetic looks before things heated up. Sara strapped he watch back on, rubbing her wrist as though it hurt. 

"What the hell's going on?" Warrick asked "Sara…Griss?"

Grissom gave Sara a look that said 'well?' as clearly as if he'd used words. "It's your place to ..."

"No way, Grissom. You stared it. It's your problem. Not mine." Sara stood up, incensed, and started stuffing her things back into her kit. "You knew when I came here I wasn't going to have this happen. Not here. Not ever." She latched the kit shut, with shaking hands, and rapidly filling eyes, "Damnit Griss…" she let her voice trail out and sat back heavily into the blue plastic chair and buried her face in her hands, shoulders shaking and sobbing softly.

Catherine moved to stroke her shoulders with a sympathetic mother's hand, but Sara slapped it away with a strength that had Catherine wincing and rubbing the spot she'd struck gingerly. Nick leapt up, and bodily pulled her chair away from the table and wrapped up around Sara. She accepted his embrace for a moment, until she stopped shaking; then breathing slowly and evenly she shook him off too.

"I am going home." Sara said slowly and clearly. She very clearly addressed Grissom. "I've got enough vacation locked up, now don't I? Consider me on leave."

"Sara…"

"No Griss, I'm not joking. I thought the last time I resigned was enough warning. I won't take this from you. If you gave my feelings half of the same consideration you give your damn tarantulas we wouldn't even be in this mess. I'm not changing my mind again. I'm sorry." She shoved her kit in his direction, "Take it, and this," she pulled a small police issue revolver out of a holster in her right boot, "and this." she pulled her wallet out of the back pocket of her jeans and folded it so that a badge was facing up. 

"Damnit Sara stop" Grissom grabbed her shoulder, "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to…"

"What?" she growled, "Force the issue? Well you did." She wrenched her arms out of his grasp and stepped into him, "You know if it wasn't for you, I would still be in Frisco. If it wasn't for you I'd still be with Deng Xao and Lee Wong and the rest of the gang. But no, Grissom had to be there when the crap hit the fan, and Grissom just had to need me when I was out of a job. Well screw you Grissom, I've had enough of this. I want out." She threw her cell phone on the table and left, slamming the door behind her.

    "What the hell?" Nick examined the badge, "She's a cop?"

"She is not 'a cop'" Grissom said, controlling himself rigidly "She was a Lieutenant in the San Francisco Police Department CSI. She transferred to Las Vegas Police when I offered her the position on CSI."

"And neither of you told us? About anything?" Catherine exclaimed "Gil, what the hell is wrong with you?"

 "She wants to keep her pension." Grissom said evenly, "and in order to be a CSI in Frisco you have to be a registered officer of the peace. Ten years on the force is a long time, even if she was in a lab and not on patrol." 

"That's not what I meant" Catherine snarled. 

"Damn," Nick leaned back in his chair, "What the hell did you just do?" 

"It was my fault," Grissom swallowed, "I shouldn't have given her that photo, but I wasn't sure and I knew she'd know."

"So what do we do now?" Warrick asked.

 "We," Grissom said emphatically, "have a case to work. I trust that none of you have forgotten about it. Besides," he gathered her belongings, "she's not the only one with extensive vacation on the books."     


	9. The Uninvited Guest

Disclaimer: I don't own it, I don't pretend to own it, and I don't mean to offend anyone's sensibilities.

Thank You: Stelmarta for being there! Mom because I love her!

Special Thank You:

To the Duchess of Hell and Saryn for the wonderful reviews. Katherine and Anna, for the extra bit of e-mail encouragement while ff,net was down.

Chapter Nine

Nick was more than a little shell shocked as he drove home. Nothing had prepared him for the events of that evening. That Sara was a Lieutenant in the Vegas PD was news enough, but he could live with that. He'd had the same conditions in Dallas where he had started out. To be a CSI you had to pass the police academy training and be commissioned as an officer. He been an officer first though, and became a CSI second. 

Giving up the squad car and the badge hadn't bothered him, but he could easily see how Sara wanted to keep hers. His old patrol partner had been like that, and ten years on the force was an old habit. That didn't bother him as much as the sight of her wrist and the knowledge that Grissom had pushed her beyond what she was comfortable revealing and stretched her trust. He was brought up never to do that to a woman, will you nil you. 

Maybe it was just the good 'ol boy Texan in him. 

He knew Grissom had his own reasons for everything. He accepted that his boss knew more about Sara than he did, but this time he suspected it was just Grissom refusing to look 'outside the microscope' and realizing that people, even and perhaps especially Sara Sidle, had feelings and they could be hurt. He'd been careless and they were on the verge of loosing someone very precious to Grissom's carelessness and Griss knew it, too 

When Nick left that morning he saw Grissom on his way out. He was no expert but the man looked as though his best friend had just died. To him she just had and he realized it too little too late. Nick pulled into his parking spot, not noticing the other black Chevy Tahoe parked in the far end of the lot. 

He pulled out his keys, opened the lock, disabled the alarm, shoved the door open and reached for the switch. It was already on. He spun around drawing his gun and looking for an intruder or burglar and spotted Sara, red eyed and very despondent sitting on his sofa. 

"Sara!" he dropped the firearm and went over to the sofa.

"Sorry," she said softly, "I…" her voice and her eyes dropped, she buried her hands in her hair and just shook her head.

"Hey that's OK," he dropped his stuff where he stood and knelt before the sofa in front of her. Seated as she was and given his extra inch or so in height, they were eye to eye with each other. He pulled her into his arms and sat next to her, shifting her onto his lap. "As long as you're here."

"You left your front window unlocked," she sniffled "Very stupid, anyone could have walked in." 

"Well it wasn't so stupid today was it?" He rubbed her back, the same way he had before. She snuggled, completely unselfconscious for once, into his embrace.

"I don't do this" she said, muffled by his chest, "I don't cry, I don't break into other people's houses, and I don't need any man to make me feel better."

"Nope," he agreed "you're not doing this."

  "Okay," she said, "as long as we're straight on that." She sat there for a minute, not saying anything but just snuggling quietly. "He's just so oblivious. He has no clue about feelings, no idea that people can be hurt by his…"

"Callousness," Nick added.

"…stupidity!" she yelled, and sat up, bracing her hands on his chest. "I'm too heavy, scoot over."

"You weigh less than my dog back at the ranch, Ok?" He tugged her back, firmly "And you don't drool on my lap either."

Helplessly she laughed, halfway crying, but laughing nonetheless. "Let me up Nick, I need to stand on my own two feet for once."

"You stand on your own two feet too damn often; let someone else take care of you for once." Nick stroked her hair, "You wanna talk about it?"

"No," she said shortly. 

"Ok,"

"I mean what right does he have to just disregard everything we've done together, just like that?" She squiggled again, facing Nick "We're like this" she crossed her index and middle fingers, "Or at least we were" she grumbled.

Foreboding began to fill Nick, for someone who just threw her badge in Grissom's face she seemed awfully concerned with him. "What is Grissom to you?" 

"What do mean? He's like…" she sighed, pushing a tangle of hair out of her eyes, "I don't know, he's just Grissom, if you know what I…oh no" Understanding of what he was really asking dawned on her face, "We were never," she blushed, her cheeks heating "Not like _that, I… we… um, not like, well, us" she said softly. "It…we…no."_

"I glad to hear that," he squeezed her, "Very glad, I wouldn't be able to fight off Grissom if he really tried."

"Don't bet on it." She said so softly that he could barely hear it; her face was lit up like a Christmas tree. She buried her face in his shoulder and he let her regain some of her composure in peace. She was a little embarrassed at the admission, but Nick let it pass. They'd move beyond that point. She sighed again, deeply "What the hell did I do?"

"You lost your temper" Nick said simply "Rightfully."

"Did he say anything?" she asked tentatively.

"That we had a case to work on and that you weren't the only one with down time on the books." Nick shifted her weight a little, "I saw him coming out of his office before I left. It looked like, well, it looked like his best friend just died."

"He didn't say anything?"

"No," Nick dredged his memory "Just that in Frisco you need to be a cop to be a CSI, it's the same in Dallas, that's how I got started too. It was a bit of a surprise, but it made sense."

"Nothing about Deng Xao or Jack or the…incident?"

"Nope," he replied, "nothing. And it wasn't for lack of interest. I saw Catherine go into his office after you left and she came out shaking her head and cursing." He lifted her chin, "Not that I wouldn't mind being a fly on that wall."

"I owe you an explanation." She said reluctantly. 

"You don't owe me a damn thing" Nick said reassuringly, "but you know I'd listen if you wanted to talk."  

"Griss and I have known each other forever." She squirmed out of his embrace, pulling herself to her feet. Nick let her go, she needed the space. "I graduated Harvard, came home, went to Berkley, started my Masters, and you-know-who just happened to be teaching the elective 'bugs and bodies 101'. I worshipped him, and he spoiled me rotten. He got me hooked up with the SFPD CSI unit. I lived with my old roommate, Deng Xao. Her parents owned a Chinese food place across the way from my parent's B&B. We went to Harvard together. She was a comp-sci major; we worked computer programming to make ends meet. She knew Grissom too; we'd get together sometimes and talk about the weirdest things." Sara went to the fridge, opened it and restlessly closed it again.

"Sounds peachy"

"It was," she began to randomly open cabinets, searching for something she couldn't readily identify, "Until I met Jack. He was a nerd, long hair, thick glasses, and a beard; the whole nine yards. He was so wild, we just had the…" her voice thickened, "We just had the most fun." 

"Something tells me it didn't last" Nick got up, went over to hold Sara.

"I didn't know, but he had a coke habit. I never saw him doing it, but he got pulled in by the police. Jack asked me to put up for bail, I told him to go to hell." Sara restlessly fiddled with a button on Nick's shirt. "He didn't like that. He put up the cash himself, sold off some computer stuff, and used the rest of the money to do some lines. He came after me. Apparently he got ticked that I wouldn't put up for him."               

 "He did this," Nick stroked her back.

"Yup," said with a lightness that covered the hurt, "Handcuffed me with a cheap kiddie pair of cuffs and pulled off his belt. Grissom found me; I'd missed class. I went to the police academy after that. No one else knew, except Grissom and Deng, and she would die before saying anything. It was Ok, until some doped up suspect got out of police custody while I was on scene. He grabbed another officer's gun and put one through me before anyone could blink."

"Just like Holly, lemme guess, the EMS took off your shirt to treat the gunshot and found out." 

"Yeah," Sara grunted, "Needless to say no one was happy. They treated me like a damn piece of glass, like I was some sort of victim. Captain wanted me to go to a psychiatrist. It was awful. Griss held my hand through that, but I couldn't stay there anymore. Internal Affairs started to get involved; I was put on leave…"

"Yadda, yadda, yadda, I was a cop, I know the drill"

"Let's just say it wasn't comfortable coming back. Grissom knew, he called me to Vegas and I came. I thought that he'd respect me enough to give me a fresh start, but…"

"He does, Sara," Nick soothed "He just doesn't think."

"He used to," Sara grumbled, "He's gotten hard over the years. I didn't see it when we were just talking over the internet or on the phone; he's not really the Grissom I was used to. He was open, well, more open, and he actually cracked a smile every one and a while."  

"So what are you going to do?"

"What do you do when you throw a long-time friendship and the job you love back into someone's face?"

"Go back," He urged her, "No one there will hold it against you. We all know he went beyond what he should of and Culpepper pushed you into it."

"I don't know," Sara sighed and pulled away from him, "I got time."

"We'd miss you," Nick stroked her cheek, "I'd miss you." Sara let her chin rest on his hand, but didn't respond, "Go sit down, let me make up some breakfast, Ok?"

 "Ok." She sat back down, and let Nick make her up a veggie omelette. They ate, companionably, in the 'living room' of his apartment. Clearing the dishes Nick glanced down the window into the 'garden' area where Sara must have entered the apartment. It was a safe place to live; there was a security system and a lock on everything, especially after that stalker incident. He hadn't locked the window, but the system had been on 

"How did you get up here? There is a wicked rosebush under that window and even if it wasn't locked I had the system on."

"Hmmm?" Sara glanced up, "Oh, yeah, the window.  Um, standard economy type system, wired in the walls and along the bottoms of the windows, if the connection's broken the system's triggered, right? It works unless you can open the window and still keep the connection." She reached into the left boot, opposite the one she'd kept the revolver in, and pulled out a pair of slender folding knives. She used the tips to open the window, keeping a connection to the touch plates on each side and laid them, hilt to hilt, flat on the sill. With a metallic object touching the plates and each other the system never triggered.   

"Holy hell, you walk around like that all the time?"

"I don't like to be unprepared," Sara shut the window as carefully as she'd opened it, and removed two wraparound ankle sheathes from her left leg, "although I usually keep one of these babies in my kit."

"Why?"

"In Frisco we had a run of informants who ratted on crime scenes to gangs. They'd try to trash it before we could get anything and sometimes they didn't care if they had to take a couple of us out to do it. The chief ordered us armed 24-7, and I just got in the habit." She shrugged fluidly, "Besides look at what happened to have me come here, Holly Gribbs died when someone came back to a scene. Griss got attacked by the 'Strip Strangler', Catherine had to shoot him, you've been stalked and threatened, Warrick's had a few close calls, and it just makes sense to me to carry something." She snapped them shut and let the knives slide to the coffee table. 

"You got a point," Nick stroked the knives, "Do you want to stay here or can I drive you home?"

"Truthfully?" Sara replied, "I don't want to go home, Grissom has a key and I know he'd come to try and talk to me. I doubt I could deal with that today. Unless you mind? I could…"

"No," he interrupted, "Stay."

"Thanks,"

"Anytime."   


	10. Operation 'Restore Hope'

Disclaimer: I don't own it, I don't pretend to own it, and I don't mean to offend anyone's sensibilities.

Thank You: Stelmarta for being there! Mom because I love her!

Special Thank You: To the Duchess of Hell and to Saryn for the wonderful support. Katherine and Anna, for the extra bit of e-mail encouragement while ff,net was down.

Chapter Ten

Catherine Willows was likely the most 'seasoned' of the CSI of Vegas. Her life as a stripper left her few illusions about the world, but every once in a while Grissom sometimes brought her expectations of human behaviour down to the lowest of the low. She remembered well when Sara had 'quit' the first time; or rather she had put in a request for terminal leave that had precluded quitting. Catherine fed him strawberry wine coolers until he called the flower shop and had a potted orchid sent to Sara. She relented, forgave, and everyone was peachy-keen.

Now it was all that Catherine could do to not strangle the insensitive idiot herself. 

What possessed him to go ahead and force Sara to reveal personal information of 'that' nature to a group of people she obviously didn't want knowing, Catherine would never understand. All she knew was that he'd put his foot in it, big, this time. She didn't bother knocking on his door, just twisted her key in the lock. 

It was a good thing, really, because Grissom had gone way past the strawberry wine cooler stage of life and was hitting it heavy. Good thing Lindsay was already at school, she'd be horrified to see 'her' Gwissom like this.

"Caff-er-wne" he slurred, "Fanshy meeting you here. Dink?" he waved a square glass of amber coloured whiskey in the air.

"Damn it Gil, what are you doing to yourself?"

"I shink iss obvioush, Cafferwne."

"Yeah, real obvious," she sat down next to him, "I take it you never found her."

"Nope, no, no, no…" he said hanging his head and shaking it, "No good. Bad, verwy bad. Gone, bye-bye, all gone." 

"OK, Grissom, let's put down the glass and go take a walk, alright?" she slid her arms around his shoulders and helped him regain his feet. "Upsy-daisy, ok, now walk."

She helped him stagger his way to the bathroom of his 'hermetically sealed condo' and stuck his head under the faucet of the tub. She turned on the water, cold. He thrashed under the steady flow, but she held him down until he quit sputtering and then let him lift up his head.  Grabbing a towel she rubbed it in his hair until it regained a semblance of dry and hauled him to his feet and threw him on the bed. 

"Gil Grissom you are well and truly drunk, you know that?" He groaned, but didn't respond. She peeled off his shoes and tucked a sheet under his chin. Before she finished he was snoring like a baby. He'd have a headache in the evening, she couldn't doubt that, but before she went back to work Catherine would get the story out of him or die trying. 

Camping out on the sofa, again, she sighed, grimacing. This sofa was not built for her. Grissom would pay for this. She would ensure it. On the coffee table she watched the amber liquid of the Jack Daniels bottle catch the early morning light and scatter a warm glow around the room. Giving into the little temptation Catherine uncorked the bottle and inhaled, before chugging a good size mouthful. It burned its way down, but felt good. Smiling she drifted off to sleep.

The next day Catherine waltzed into CSI lab whistling. Not only had she weaselled the important information out of Gil, she had a pretty good idea of where to find Sara. For all of his investigative talents, he was so clueless when it came to personal things that he had no idea about Sara's budding relationship with Nick. Or, rather, Catherine thought he didn't have a clue. He never mentioned it, and his exhaustive search hadn't included Nick's apartment, where Catherine was sure someone had spent the night sleeping over. Watching Nick come in that morning she was vindicated. 

"Hey Nick!" 

"Yo," he spun in place and faced her.

"My office"

"Yeah," he followed Catherine, albeit slowly. He had a distinct idea what this was about and was mentally preparing to try and pretend that he didn't know quite as much about it as he did. "Listen Catherine…"

"I know what happened to her in Frisco with Jack and her buddy Deng Xao and I know she's with you and that she's probably contemplating homicide."

"Ok," he slumped down in a chair, "I will neither confirm nor deny anything here, but let's take this one step at a time. How did you…"

"Grissom," she said abruptly, "He was drunker than a skunk last night. Got out a bottle of good ol' Jack Daniels and had half of it inside him before the shift was up."

"Damn," Nick swore, "Sara's going to be pissed."

"Providing of course you know where Sara is…" she smiled.

"Damn it Catherine you know full well she's with me." Nick glowered, "Though I don't really know how that got out."

"It didn't 'get out'" Catherine smiled, "I spied, but that's beside the point." 

"Of course" 

"Shut it," Catherine said amicably, "How are we going to get them back to CSI without strangling one of them to do it?"

"What?"

"Together, you" she pointed a very sharp looking manicured nail at him, "and I have the advantage here. I have access to Grissom; you have access to Sara, yes?" 

"Yes"

"Then together we" she gave him a pointed look "are going to see if we can 'fix' Grissom's little gaffe before one of them does something incredibly stupid, like leave."

"Grissom's gonna leave?"

"You weren't there, Nick." A distressed expression crossed her face, "He's about as heartbroken as I've ever seen him. He's as proud as a brand-new-daddy of Sara and has no idea how to show it. She crushed his little ego."

"Little?" Nick asked.

"He's just so clueless, Nick. She's got the power to turn him inside out and he hasn't the foggiest idea how to get that across to her." Catherine absently traced a scar on her cheap, Government Issue desk, with a sharpened nail, "And there's no way in hell Sara understands just how much she means to him."

"Yeah, well she spent half the day screaming at me because of his insensitivity," Nick shrugged back into one of the two 'guest' chairs, "and the other half crying her eyes out because she'd ruined everything."

"Hey, I hate to spoil the fun, but anyone planning on letting me into the know?" Warrick, leaning casually on the doorframe, "After all, it's not like this is an exclusive little club, huh?"

"Sure Warrick, why don't we just open it up and let everyone in" Nick said sarcastically.

"Very funny," he pulled up a chair, backwards, and put his chin on the edge. "C'mon, what do Grissom and Sara have that the rest of us human beings don't?"

"I dunno, a whole bunch of vacation time to waste?" Nick grumbled.

"Bingo," Warrick lifted his head. "They live this job." He spread his arms wide. "You, me, Catherine, we go home in the morning and we got stuff there. I got my music, Cath's got Lindsay, and you play Rugby" he generously ignored Nick's enthusiastic grunts, after all: boys will be boys, "but what do Grissom and Sara go home to? The JOB. They never stop, Hell, man, Grissom was born to be a CSI. Look at those damn bugs. He goes home at night and plays with those bugs. Sara doesn't even go home. I mean have you ever seen her apartment?" both Nick and Catherine shook their heads, "Neither have I. I don't think she even sees her apartment on anything approaching a regular basis."

"So what do we have to bring them back together? We got the job." Catherine grinned, "Warrick, you're a genius."

"Yeah, well  ..."He was cut off by a well timed cuff from Nick. "Seriously, I got two DB's one found out west, just skin and bones. A perfect match for our bone enthusiast, and I got one DB in the park with all sorts of nice little baby bugs crawling about for our resident bugman."

"So I get the bugs," Catherine snapped up the folder.

"And I get the bones" Nick grabbed the other.

"That leaves me with the unenviable task of dealing with the families that are coming to ID the bodies." Warrick pushed off from his perch. "You know what you got to do. Let's do it. You owe me, big time."

"Operation 'Restore Hope' will now commence" 

Catherine put in her call to a very hung over Grissom, who could no more resist the siren call of the bugs then he could lift off the ground and fly. She made a cross town detour to his condo, promised to never ever tell anyone he was helping her out with this, and promptly called Warrick to report a mission success when Gil turned his back. 

Nick had a little more persuading to do; Sara was very much asleep. He learned, no surprise, that once Sara Sidle actually got to a bed and succeeded in falling asleep she was as immoveable as the proverbial Rock of Gibraltar. That was the infamous Sidle single mindedness for you.  She didn't move, didn't roll over, and didn't hog the covers, which to his mind was the single fastest way to ruin an otherwise smooth relationship. 

She was just a pain in the neck to wake up. Even his Sleeping Beauty kiss-the-lady-awake-before-you-go routine didn't garner more than a grunt before she lapsed back into oblivion. He didn't even want to think about the size or decibel level of the industrial strength alarm clock she probably had stashed somewhere in her apartment. Bones however were her pride and joy, and as soon as he pierced the formidable wall of her sleep, she was dressed and ready in minutes. Score another mission success.

Managing to contain the distraught families of the victims was Warrick's unfortunate task. Actually, in this case, the victim came last. His most pressing priority was to ID the bomber; she was the ultimate link to the bank manager. Unfortunately only two of the three families of Jane Doe # 13 spoke English well and none of them spoke it at all after seeing the remains. He really couldn't blame them, it wasn't a pretty sight. Espanol was, however, not his language of choice. Thanking his lucky stars that there was only one hit on AFIS for the male Chinese, Warrick postponed that meeting until Thursday. 

Grissom, though considered oblivious by his peers, had no problem seeing through Catherine's pretension of 'inviting' him back to 'help' her with the scene. There was enough evidence screaming out loud that had nothing to do with bugs that would allow her to wrap this up in no time. He had other, more pressing issues to deal with. A well placed call to Chinatown, in San Francisco, led to a most satisfactory response. He had an unenviable eight hour car trip ahead of him, but that was beside the point. He'd get to Sara, one way or the other.

_Author's Note(s):_

_Saryn__ where the hell is your E-Mail address? Been looking for it forever! I could've got the whole thing to you while FF.net was down, but I couldn't look you up. You are a wonderful human being for taking out your time to review me. Please, will ya?_

_Another big set of Kudos to Silver Epiphany and Duchess and all the rest of the wonderful human beings who've gone so far as to give me some feedback. I well and truly appreciate it.   _


	11. Chinatown, San Franciso

Disclaimer: I don't own it, I don't pretend to own it, and I don't mean to offend anyone's sensibilities.

Thank You: Stelmarta for being there! Mom because I love her!

Special Thank You: Duchess of Hell and to Saryn for the wonderful support. Katherine and Anna, for the extra bit of e-mail encouragement while ff,net was down.

Chapter Eleven

Chinatown in San Francisco was as incredible a place as ever existed. Although the 'chinatown' in New York City was technically bigger, nothing could truly compare to the sheer cohesiveness of these people and this place. Gil Grissom walked the streets aimlessly, or to the average bystander it seemed aimless. He stopped every once and a while and bought something from a street vendor. Nothing expensive, so that he wasn't marked as a target for a pickpocket, but nothing truly cheesy, he did, after all, have some standards. 

Eventually he caught one of Frisco's famous trolleys; it took him spinning madly to the top of hills and back down again. They were almost as good as a roller coaster, but not quite as rough. It ended near an extraordinarily wealthy district, Porsche's and Bentley's casually parked in super protected and super expensive private garages. He walked now with a purpose, to the granite façade of a rather large condo. Stepping briskly onto the stairs he ignored the bell and rapped smartly on the thick redwood door. 

Waiting for someone to answer, he rolled over in his mind the sight of Sara, lounging in one of these bastions of conspicuous consumption. Unbeknownst to anyone but Deng Xao, Deng's husband, a Frisco PD Detective named Lee Wong, and Grissom, Sara was independently financed.

 The 'little dot.com' that she and Deng Xao had once run out of a studio apartment in the worst section of Chinatown to help make ends meet, went public during the dot.com boom of the early nineties. 

The IPO went from a buck fifty to one fifty in a matter of hours. Surprisingly, it stayed there. Although Deng Xao was the 'official' beneficiary of the success, Sara helped herself, with tacit permission, whenever she needed it. 

Grissom thought it was very odd, but neither of the 'sisters' thought twice about it, they trusted each other. 'Money is money,' Sara once told him in a very 'Sara' manner, 'why the hell should I care as long as I don't have to worry about it?'

 "Good Morning, sir, may I ask who is calling?"

"Gil Grissom," he introduced himself to the maid, a cheerful Hispanic who's English probably consisted of 'good morning, sir'. 

"Oh, OK, come in." he was ushered into the main room, where Deng Xao Wong, waited with a fragrant pot of tea. He accepted a cup; it was the same blend she always drank, even when she'd been robbing Peter to pay Paul. She was a woman of very specific taste and the ambitions to achieve it. 

"So?"

She resisted the urge to say 'so what?' 

"Well good morning to you too, Gil."

"Good Morning Deng Xao. Where is she?"

"She's not here." Watching Grissom's eyes go from bland to blue fire she carefully set down the cup of tea and braced herself.

"You said she was," he said evenly, belaying his underlying temper. My, did he have a temper, she mused, although it was so rare to be let out of its cage. 

"I lied,"

"Why?"                         

"She doesn't need you banging doors down right trying to get to her right now. She has enough on her plate to deal with,"

"And you didn't feel like sharing this with me before I undertook an eight hour trip in the wrong direction?"

"I'm not sure it was the wrong direction Gil,"

"You're being enigmatic," he polished off the cup and placed it back on his saucer, "You know where she is."

"Yes and No" he arched a brow, she sighed, "She E-mailed me where she was staying, but I'm not really sure I know where it is and no, I'm not going to tell you."

"Since when did you become an expert on her feelings," he groused bitterly.

"Since we've been living together for ninety percent of our lives," Deng said evenly, "You've met her parents, Gil; you know damn well she never spent any time with them if she could help it. She lived at my house and I at hers. We're as close as sisters, closer even, because we chose to have each other." 

Deng, lifted her eyes from the rim of the cup, looking to all intents and purposes like some sort of bizarre Chinese Goddess, "You have no idea how much soul searching she did to go to Vegas, but she did it because of you." raising her voice, helpless against the anger welling inside, "She did it because you made her a promise, and you told her that she could forget it all."

"And I went ahead and did it anyhow" Grissom mumbled.

"You have no idea Gil," she dug the knife in deeper, "you never woke up, with her screaming in her dreams. You never watched her turn from human contact, afraid of just simple friendship." 

Wordlessly Grissom hung his head; it was almost verbatim the lecture Catherine had read him the night before, with the exception of the screaming-at-night routine. "So what do I do?"

"What do you want from her?"

"Forgiveness," he said instantly.

"You had that the moment she first saw you," Deng said irritably, "She's never been able to resist anything you asked."

"Then what?" he asked simply, "I don't know what I want her to do, I just don't want her to go."

"Then Mr. Grissom," Deng stood up, "I suggest you ask. As far as I know she's never refused you anything you in her life. She's worked hard to try and achieve something good in your eyes. She became a CSI to try and impress you; she's damn good at it because you are too, and she loves it, because you showed her how." 

Deng paced, angrily, "Talk to her Grissom. Tell her you're proud of her, tell her she's done well, and tell her you don't want her to go. She could have come into business with me, made a fortune, married a good man, but she chose to follow you. I suggest you take responsibility for that." 

"You're protective of her." 

"Damn straight. She's my sister, in every sense of the word." Deng sighed, "And for some reason that now escapes me she adores you."

"Thank you," he raised his eyes to her.

"For the butt whipping? Anytime." Deng cleared the tea tray off the table, "Just don't hurt her Grissom, you hurt her, I hurt you, capuche? Right now she's just upset, real upset, but upset. Hurt her and die." Deng's tone was humorous, but hers eyes told a different story.

"Understood," Grissom sat back in the comfortable, expensively so, living room, "Am I welcome to stay?"

"Always," Deng Xao smiled, "If she's my sister that makes you an honorary brother, of sorts. Far be it for me to deny a family member a bed. You can have Sara's room, unless you want to be a guest?"

"I'll take it," he agreed.

"All yours" she swept off to the kitchen, checked once with the maid, than barricaded herself in the study. Logging on to her computer, she grinned wickedly at the message waiting for her in her inbox. 

It was from cwillows@LVPD.org, consisting of one word: "_Well?" _

Grinning madly, a look almost identical to Sara's maniacal glee at a successful case, she typed in a reply: _Bugman__ is in the house. Guilt trip laid. C-me @ __6 A.M. At the appointed hour, although early for Deng Xao, she waited near her Instant Messenger box. It dinged._

cwillows typed: _Well?_

DXW responded: _He's wallowing in it; I'd give him a day before he's back_

nstokes typed: _Sure?_

DXW responded: _yes!_

wbrown typed: _do you think it will work?_

DXW responded: _hopefully, I've never known her to not forgive him_

nstokes typed: _she's really pissed_

DXW responded: _she might be living with you now, but she's been with me forever. I know Sara; she'll forgive him if he asks for it._

cwillows typed: _will he do it?_

DXW responded: _that I have no control over. Cross your fingers._

nstokes typed: _do you want us to do anything?_

DXW responded: _have her there when he gets there the more tired the better_

wbrown typed: _wilco__, anything else?_

DXW responded: _pray_

cwillows typed: _she's back, I gotta run, good luck guys_

"Hey Catherine," Sara called out, "You busy?"

"Phone," Catherine waved her cell, "Eddie left an E-mail" she had a slight qualm in lying to the younger woman, but assured herself it was for the best. "Just typing back"

"Is everything Ok?" Sara's brows joined and she frowned, worried.

"Yeah, he'll just be late. Again," Catherine forced a wry grin.

"Bastard" Sara said with real venom, none of the CSI liked Eddie.

"Yeah, well we all have our skeletons." Sara did a double take to see if the comment was directed in the manner it had been taken, but Catherine had her back turned and was digging for her kit. "C'mon, let's go get this guy."

She and Sara entered the residence of Angel Gutierrez, their search warrant tucked triumphantly in his lawyer's pocket. Apparently finding the DNA of the bomber on his hands was enough for Judge Walker to authorize the home invasion. They were looking for anything to connect him to the bomber, including clothing, fibres, any bodily residues, and any other thing that they could possibly think of to examine.

"Upstairs or Downstairs?"

"Top down I guess"

"Cool," they trooped up the staircase, and began the search in the master bedroom. Catherine started in the bathroom, Sara, in the sleeping area. 

"So Sara, I hear you're sleeping with Nick" to this comment she received a satisfying crash from the bedroom as something slipped out of Sara's hands.

"Who the hell told you that?" the outraged Sidle asked.

"Nobody," Catherine said amicably, "It's kind of obvious when you show up together driving his car."           

"Did not!" she protested, they'd been driving her car.

"Sara," Catherine said in that patient mommy-knows-already-so-why-are-you-trying-to-hide-it tone of voice.

"Well it's not like we're…sleeping together. We're just sleeping …together."

"Oh now that makes sense" Catherine teased, "Whasamatter, cat got your tongue? Or maybe Nick's got it somewhere, hmmm?"

"Catherine!" she exclaimed, and felt her cheeks heat. Sending a glare towards the bathroom she saw the other woman grinning madly. Sara's face now flaming like a fourth of July firecracker; she stuck her aforementioned tongue out at Catherine before the two of them dissolved into helpless giggles, like a pair of teenagers.     

Sara lolling on the floor caught herself, "Damn it Cath,"

"Sorry, I just had to say it, you left yourself wide open" Sara rolled on her stomach to face the bathroom and smiled, genuinely, at her friend. Catherine grinned back, accepting the relationship and all it represented in the easy gesture.

"So…"Sara prodded. 

"So what?" Catherine asked, "Do you want me to give you my approval or something?"

"Maybe" 

"Do you need it?"

"No," Sara blushed, again, "but…" 

"Nick's good man, but you know that." Catherine said, "Go for it, hell, if I were ten years younger I'd give you a run for your money."

"Don't you dare!" Sara warned.

"Wouldn't dream of it, I promise" Catherine folded her hands "Cross my heart"

"Good," Sara sat back up, resuming her dusting of the bedroom and its fixtures. The Red Creeper powder in its neat little tin was a glaring reminder of who was not there at the moment. "Hey Cath,"

"Yeah?"

"You heard from Grissom lately?" Surprised at the timing of the question, but not the contents, Catherine pondered her options.

"I haven't heard from him since the end of that day. He took vacation." Technically she was truthful; they'd gone to visit the body early in the afternoon on the day of the shift that Sara'd walked out, although she was sure that wasn't quite what Sara had in mind for an answer.  

"He did?" Sara had yet to return to the main CSI building, instead taking fieldwork where she wouldn't have the chance to run into him. 

"Yeah," deciding to make a point or at least a stab at one, "I think … I think you've upset him Sara. He's in a bit over his head."

"Oh really?" her voice dripped sardonic sarcasm.  

"What he did was wrong, Sara. But I've known Grissom at least as long as you have, he's …he just doesn't understand that people can be hurt by the things he says. Especially if they're true."

"You don't need to justify him to me, Catherine." Sara sighed, resigned, "God knows that I should understand.

"Give him a chance," Sara was silent, Catherine could see reflected in the bathroom mirror that the face of the young CSI was set like stone, with a few defiant tears trailing down and Sara stubbornly ignoring them. 

Diplomatically, Catherine decided not to push it.    


	12. The Meeting

Disclaimer: I don't own it, I don't pretend to own it, and I don't mean to offend anyone's sensibilities.

Thank You: Stelmarta for being there! Mom because I love her!

Special Thank You: Duchess of Hell and to Saryn for the wonderful support. Katherine and Anna, for the extra bit of e-mail encouragement while ff,net was down.

Chapter Twelve

Warrick was having a tough time with this family. They wanted to help, they really truly did, but the husband was in his early seventies, as was his wife, and both were native speakers of Chinese. They did speak English well, considering that they'd come to the language late in life. He was trying to extract enough information out of them to make actually going into the morgue and physically identifying the body unnecessary. It wasn't going too well and at seven o'clock in the morning, fatigue was beginning to catch up to him.

"Alright Mr. and Mrs. Fa, it looks as though we're going to have to do this the hard way. Which one of you wants to go in?"

"I will go" said the diminutive woman, putting her firm chin in the air. Warrick nodded and escorted them to the morgue. On the way there he ran into Catherine and Sara, grinning like fools and supervising the transport of several boxes of evidence.

"Hey, looks like a nice stash"

"Oh we got him Warrick," Catherine grinned widely, "look at this." Sara reached into one of the evidence boxes and extracted a baggie containing one pair of novelty handcuffs, bent slightly and dripping of Luminol. 

"Oh baby, come to me." Warrick took the bag and grinned, "Anything else?"

"Loads," Sara sighed, "We found the website locked up in his computer, I think she accessed it from his house. There are also some very fishy looking financial records; we got him wrapped up for a couple of things."

"Great," Warrick grinned madly, "Listen I gotta take care of the ID on John Doe, but good job ladies. Real nice work." Sara grinned and Catherine beamed, Warrick in unusually high spirits for a trip to the morgue, halfway danced his way down the corridor.

"They get who?" the elderly gentlemen asked.

"Um, well, I can't really say because this is an open investigation, but let's just say the person who's really responsible for this happening is about to find himself in some serious hot water." 

The man nodded, apparently satisfied. He and his wife embraced quietly, gathering strength before she went into the room, accompanied by Warrick. The stench was unholy, and the body was pretty mangled, but the head was intact enough that Mrs. Fa nodded her assent. This was her son. Hoping against hope that this encounter with the family wouldn't end up in a flurry of less than stellar English, Warrick escorted her out and pulled off his mask. 

"What now Mr. Brown?" her husband asked him holding his wife tenderly.

"We go down to Processing to have his remains released to your custody." They began the long trek from the morgue to the main desk of the LVPD. Warrick took the shortcut through CSI hall, and got the appropriate forms out for Mrs. Fa to fill. She made it through the first page before crumpling back into her husband's embrace keening loudly and exclaiming in Chinese.

A door slammed open, and pelting out of the CSI hall was Sara running like the devil and his demons were chasing her. She spotted the Fa's and made a beeline for the processing counter.

"It's alright; it's Ok, everything going to…" Warrick was suddenly interrupted by Sara, who shocked him, Catherine, and Nick, who poked his head out at the commotion, by beginning to calm the woman by speaking in the same high, nasal Chinese dialect that she was exclaiming in.

 Shocked by the language of her home spoken out of the mouth of this five-eight skinny-as-a-rail Anglo, Mrs. Fa allowed Sara to take over the rest of the forms, asking the appropriate questions in Chinese and being responded to in kind.

They parted, still conversing in the same language, and Sara escorted them outside, chatting. Warrick, silently asked Catherine, who shrugged, and turned to Nick, who nodded absently, but was still a little confused. 

"Hey Sar, remind me to ask you next time we get stuck with the ones who don't speak English. I had a couple of good ones yesterday." Warrick said in a jocular tone, "No se hablan ingles."

"I don't know Spanish Warrick, I wouldn't have been much more use than anyone else." She snapped, a little prickly at having her ability revealed.

"How come you never told anyone you spoke Chinese?" asked Nick.

"I don't 'speak Chinese' " she said irritably, going back to the break room, "I speak Cantonese. You live in Chinatown for long enough, you pick it up, OK?"  

"You lived in Chinatown?" Catherine asked.

"It was cheap and I was broke" Sara grunted, "Problem?"

"No," Catherine didn't want to set off this ticking time bomb, "Just curious."

 She glared at Warrick and Nick, with the unspoken message 'don't pry'. Nick checked his watch, the shift was up in ten minutes anyhow, and he followed Catherine and Sara into the break room. 

"So what'd you do on your vacation?" he asked, tongue in cheek, because he knew damn well what she did on her vacation. He was rewarded by the slightly annoyed glare and scowl that was Sara Sidle. 

"Who says I did anything?" she countered, sharply. "I spent half the time asleep anyhow. You know that." He sent a quick look to Catherine, unsure that Sara really wanted to get into this now, but she just laughed. 

"Nick, you honestly think something like this could go on at CSI and she'd not know about it?" Sara grumbled, "Damn woman has got her fingers in every cookie jar."

"Amen," Warrick, filing away a manila envelope in the cabinet on the side of the break room. "She's got radar or something"

 He slid, backwards, onto one of the chairs. Nick plopped onto the sofa, and held an inviting arm open for Sara, who sighed resignedly, but snuggled anyhow.

"You know I'm standing right here, don't you?" Asked Catherine, slightly amused at the staff's reaction to her 'cookie jar' instincts. 

"So?" asked Warrick.

She leaned back onto the table, determined to change the subject, before they revealed some of her more, shall we say, controversial 'cookie jars'. "So what do we think we've got the manager for, assault, fraud, or tax evasion?"

"How about all of the above," Nick offered, "I was just looking through the records, just a little, 'cause the real CPA's for the Feds gotta go through it, but basically he's busted."

"Good" said a voice, from the doorway. 

Everyone turned, though not to see who it was, though they could have recognised that speaker in their sleep. It was Grissom, rumpled, raccoon-eyed, and sardonic. "Nice to know my people keep going, even when I'm not here."

  Sara, who'd bolted to her feet at the sound of his voice, was frozen in place. She stood stock still; Nick was reminded of deer, caught in the scope of his hunter's gun. Not moving, but painfully aware of all their surroundings. Grissom let his overnight bag slide off his shoulder; it thudded dully in the pin-drop silence of the CSI lounge.

"Good morning, Sara." He greeted, with every trace of his usual Grissom tones.

"Go to hell, Grissom" she responded, challengingly. 

He visibly winced, as if she'd struck him physically. The rest of the staff, circled around the pair, like a boxing match. Catherine standing next to Grissom, Warrick between them, and Nick, silently supporting Sara from behind.

"What make you think I haven't already been there, Sara?" Grissom asked softly.

Nick could see her back stiffen, and shoulders go tight, but she didn't relent. "What's that supposed to mean?"  Sara tossed her head confidently, "You don't even know the meaning of the word."

"If it means that you've failed one of your best and dearest friends and known it, then yes, I believe I do."  Grissom said in the ever-so-logical tone he lectured in, controlling himself rigidly.

 His words threw Sara off balance and he quickly rushed in, not wanting to miss his chance. "I promised you anonymity when you came here, I've failed at that. I promised to respect your feelings, and I've failed at that as well. It was unpardonable of me, Sara. I apologise. I've been quite an ass."

"I won't argue with that." Sara said stubbornly, but her voice had lost some its vitriol. Grissom revealing his feelings was a rare occasion indeed. 

"I…" he bit his lip and plodded steadily foreword, "I don't want you to leave. You're too good a CSI, you're too good a friend, you're too good a person, and I'll miss you too much. I need you here Sara, we all do."

"We…" her voice trailed off, "You planned this!" she said in a rush, glaring at Catherine and Warrick and Nick, finding a target for her bottled up feelings. "All of you! What is this: 'open season on Sara' or something? Why can't you people just leave well enough alone?" 

"Grissom's not the only one who wants you to stay here, Sara." Catherine stepped foreword, toughing her shoulders slightly, "We all need you here. Who'll hang out with Nick, if you go? Who's going to sing in the lab if you're gone? Pick on Greg's eating habits? Remind Grissom that people are people and not specimens?"

Sara backed away from Catherine's gentle persuasion; the situation was spiralling out of her immediate control. It terrified her. Sara didn't like to be out of control, she never had. People worried her, they she couldn't predict what they did, couldn't anticipate them, and couldn't stop them. 

Her eyes darted from Nick to Catherine to Warrick to Grissom. They were threatening her attitude of imperviousness. She cared, they cared for her, and she was open, she wasn't invincible anymore; it scared her out of her mind. 

"Just leave me the hell alone." Sara said softly, but with serious venom, "Go away, all of you, and leave me the hell alone!"

Sara was gone, just that quickly. 

Grissom just sat heavily on one of the chairs, putting his head in his hands. Catherine put an arm around him, and he slid one around her too, taking support from her, surprising everyone, Catherine the most of all. Nick just slumped back onto the sofa, Warrick paced, compulsively neatening random things around the room.

"So what now?" Nick finally asked.

"Now," Grissom said, surprisingly calm, "We wait. Give her some time to sort it out. She'll be back."

"How can you be so sure?" Warrick asked bitterly, upset that their scheme hadn't worked. "I mean this is Sara we're talking about here; God knows what goes on in her head."

"She'll be back" Catherine agreed with Grissom, "If nothing else she won't want to give us the satisfaction of having run her off."


	13. The Game

Disclaimer: I don't own it, I don't pretend to own it, and I don't mean to offend anyone's sensibilities.

Thank You: Stelmarta for being there! Mom because I love her! Megan for keeping in touch, despite however much of an idiot I can be. 

Special Thank You: 

Saryn for the wonderful support: 

Here is your cookie (chocolate w/ M &M's) and your football game. 

Chapter Thirteen

Sara drove around Vegas, aimlessly, not wanting to think, but the conversation played in circles like an unending tape. Finally she stopped, realising she was just too tired to keep driving. 

It was an upscale restaurant, upscale in the way only Vegas can be, tucked in the corner of one of the more prominent casinos. _Ming's Cantonese Corner, it was trendy, expensive, and had the best Cantonese food Sara'd ever had, outside of Mama-Xao's kitchen. _

The staff knew her, they damn well should. She stopped there for a meal almost three or four times a week, tipped outrageously, and ordered in the native language. Not many Chinese even did that, certainly not in an expensive casino in Vegas three times a week. That was the result of Deng Xao's monetary gift to her, and Sara's one, and only, indulgence.

Entering the dim, cool, interior was like crawling back into the womb. She'd been practically raised in Mama-Xao's kitchen, busing tables and taking orders since she was tall enough to reach the register. Sara may never be able to cook like a human being, but she could chop things with a Chinese style cleaver with a speed and accuracy that would make a steakhouse chef weep in envy.

They spirited her to 'her' table, one overlooking the casino floor, and handed her a menu, not that she really needed it. She ordered, and the food was brought out without question. No one bothered to ask why she was eating Cantonese for breakfast. 'Thank God for Vegas' Sara thought to herself, 'nothing ever closes not even Chinese restaurants at seven thirty in the morning.'

She knew that she'd been unfair, that her friends were only trying to help, that they cared enough about her to want her to stay. It was just something inside Sara that twitched and fought violently the instant she became vulnerable. 

Den Xao had learned to live with her, um, eccentricities, out of necessity; they'd both been the 'odd men out' during Elementary and High School. It was only natural that they'd cling together, but that relationship had been decades in the making. She'd only been at CSI for a year, a little more perhaps, how could they presume to, well, presume to make these kinds of demands on her?   

 But then again there was Catherine, sweet mommy figure and raunchy ex-stripper all in one. Warrick, her never realized, but always there big brother. Nick was, Sara's stomach gave an excited little jump just thinking about him, Nick was just Nick and she was beginning to think that she might love him dearly for it, but she refused to analyse that relationship any more than strictly necessary. Then there was Grissom, Gil Grissom, Mr. Grissom, Professor Gil, and just plain Griss.   

      _  It bounced back and forth in her head for a while until her cell phone rang, nearly jumping her out of her skin. This wasn't her Vegas PD issued cell; this was her personal micro-mini wireless internet, PDA, super clear, digital toy phone. It had been another gift from the computer goddess, Deng Xao, and as far as Sara knew she was the only one with the number. It was the emergency lifeline for the two women who'd spent most of their lives in extremely close contact.  _

"Hey Dinghy", Deng Xao secretly despised the nickname, but like all good nicknames it had stuck. 

"Hey Sare-bear, Grissom see you?"

"Jesus, you knew about that too? I suppose the re-broadcast'll be on CNN if anyone missed it the first time 'round." Sara grumbled, halfway pleased that this was not a situation she was going at alone.

"Very funny, I'm laughing." Deng Xao, said sardonically, "Seriously, you gonna forgive him?"

"How did you…no I don't want to know, that'll just make it even worse." Sara rubbed her eyes, feeling a headache forming, "I just…I'm lost Dinghy, I don't know what to do."

"Do you like Vegas?" asked Deng sensibly.

"Of course!" Sara protested, "That's not the problem."

"Do you wanna come back to NEThackers? You know that you're always welcome back here at home. I could use the help."

"I know, I know, it's just that I got, or rather I thought that I had something…good. " Sara stumbled, and then grumbled, "They've confused ME!" 

"Ok, let's simplify," Deng said amicably, "Suck it up, stay in Vegas, and hang out with that Boy Scout from Texas. OR: give it up, come home, and make a mint of money with me."

"Waitaminute" Sara pulled back a second, "Since when did you know about Nick and me?"

"Since we had a little chat about life, liberty, and the pursuit of chocolate cake a couple of days ago. Or maybe yesterday, I don't know, your schedule's got me all whacked. Why can't you just do day shift?" Dang asked, irately. 

Sara's head started to swim, "Slow down Deng you're losing me. I'm night shift because I want to be night shift. I like Vegas, even if Grissom's an idiot occasionally, and I don't have the foggiest idea what to do with Nick."

"Sweetheart," Dang said in a deliberately condescending tone, "If you don't know what to do with him, then you're wayyy too far gone." 

"That's not what I meant!"

"Ok, ok," Deng realised she'd pushed a little too far, "We'll leave that alone. For now. Decision time Sara, put it up or give it up. Decide. Now."

Sara sat, frozen, but it just floated out of her disobedient mouth, "Put it up."

Silence. For about ten full seconds there wasn't a sound on the other line, and then Deng Xao sighed, audibly moved, "Good. Real good, Sare-bear. You need to be there, Frisco would have just been one giant step backwards."

"Then why didn't you say so?" Sara asked, not upset, she couldn't really get upset with Deng Xao, "Woulda made my life a lot easier."

"You had to make that decision for yourself, love; I don't run your life." Sara knew Deng was grinning on the other end, "You know I'm here if you need me."

"Yeah, me too" Sara felt the weight on her shoulders lift away, leave it to Deng to make everything simple again, "Love you Dinghy."

"Love ya too, Bear-y." she sniffled, "Oh damn, I'm messing up my mascara."

"Go fix it" Sara commanded, "I'm ok."

"Sure?" sniffled Deng. 

"Yeah, thanks." Sara hung up, not waiting for Deng's acknowledgement. She was staying, not without certain changes, but Sara Sidle was not about to give up or give in on anything. That was not in her vocabulary. 

Determined, she finished her breakfast in peace. 

****

That afternoon, after some serious soul searching, and a nap she decided to confront her little demons. It was a toss up for which one of her friends was more important to her sanity, but she made a decision anyway. She decided the easiest way to confront this was, in a typically bull-headed fashion, head on. 

Sara knew, vaguely, where Nick claimed that his Rugby 'pitch' was located. It was in the same sporting complex where the stupid hockey player had got himself killed on the ice, even if he wasn't exactly killed on the ice. It wasn't an exclusively Rugby place, just a soccer/football/lacrosse/rugby/whatever stretch of dry grass. She didn't know the vaguest thing about the sport, other than it was played in some European country or other and was very violent.

Sure enough one of the dusty, sweaty, and otherwise undistinguishable players was Nick, she recognised the A&M T-shirt. They smacked into each other with a gleeful disregard for safety and good health. There was a footballish shaped ball, but too big for a football, that they tossed about. They didn't stop when someone went down, just kept right on going over the prone form, and they only passed backwards or sideways, something she found very curious. 

At some point they seemed to attempt organization, about half moved on to one side and the other half shed their shirts and moved to the other. Nick was one who shed his shirt, and for the remainder of the event Sara was treated to the pleasure of watching him run around, sweating, without a shirt on. 

About ten minutes later Sara decided it was kind of like football, only without pads or complicated plays or whatnot. They just kicked it off, ran, and tackled. If someone got tackled he just gave up the ball before he got mauled and the game moved on. They did appear to have penalties; they all huddled into a circle and kicked each other, or the ball, when it got tossed in. If it went out-of-bounds they tossed it back in, like soccer, but different.  

They all shook hands, some more firmly than others, and began to trot off the grass. Sara stood up, off the flimsy aluminium bleachers, and stood by the exit. She got several appreciative looks, and by men who were by no means shabby, but her eyes were only focused on Nick. He didn't look up until he was almost on top of her, his head downcast and his chest heaving. 

"Hey," she called, before he passed her by.

"Sara" he said disbelievingly. 

"Hey! Baby, wanna come home with a real man?" some of the other men catcalled, teasing Nick, but he just froze in place, wanting to touch her, but realizing he was too filthy. 

"This is what you do for fun?" she asked him, not being able to visualize Nick, who'd been nothing but gentle with her, mauling a man into the ground like she'd seen him do. 

 "Yeah, it's a good workout. Gets rid off all that stress" Nick said mechanically, "Got hooked up with it in Dallas, guy named Sullivan, there's a club." 

"Well it is a good workout," Sara eyed the results of that physical exertion, for he hadn't put his shirt back on yet, "You don't hear me complaining."

He smiled and exaggeratingly flexed his chest and biceps. Sara giggled, involuntarily, because that was not a usual sound that she made, but the ice had been broken. My, my, did his chest look good.

"Come home with me," she blurted, unable to find the right words to make the request seem less like an order. 

"Ok," he nodded, seriously, because it was a serious thing she'd suggested. "Lemme go get cleaned up." 


	14. Multiple Mayhem

Disclaimer: I don't own it, I don't pretend to own it, and I don't mean to offend anyone's sensibilities.

Thank You: Stelmarta for being there! Mom because I love her! Megan for keeping in touch, despite however much of an idiot I can be.

Special Thank You: Duchess of Hell and to Saryn for the wonderful support.

Chapter Fourteen

Nick watched Sara out of the corner of his eye as they drove to her apartment; she was completely expressionless, driving with a ruthlessly controlled precision that screamed tension. A little muscle in her cheek ticked as she pulled off the freeway and into an expensive gated development of condos.

 He wasn't a snob, not by a long shot, but he knew damn well that she'd never be able to afford to live here on a CSI salary. Another facet of Sara Sidle that he had a feeling she was loathe showing. 

Hers was towards the far northwest corner of the lot; she parked, switched off the engine, and got out of the car wordlessly. He followed, leaving his smelly Rugby kit in the car. Her hands trembled as she fished a key out of her pocket, barely making it into the lock.

"You don't have to do this," he murmured, conscious that Sara was not comfortable with the idea of him being here.  

"Yes I do," she shot back, almost angrily, and jerked the door open, she ducked in and he followed, not quite sure what to expect. 

Her home was panelled, in a strong, glowing wood, cherry maybe or mahogany, and the tiles under his feet were slate, smooth and cool in the desert heat. The trim was black lacquer, leaving a decidedly Asian feel to the place, hardly surprising. She was facing him, with a glowering scowl, and looked about ready to kill someone. 

Or cry. 

When he held out his hand she came into his arms with a rush.

"I'm sorry," she said at last, shoulders trembling, "I shouldn't be doing this."

"What? You're welcome at my place if it'd make you feel better" he offered, thinking it was about him being in her home.

"NO," she ground out, frustrated, hand fisting in his jersey, "I shouldn't need you, I shouldn't need this…" she shook the fistful of cloth in her hand. 

Hurt, he pulled back. Removing her tight grip and holding both her hands by the wrists, forcing her to meet his eyes.

"Then why am I here?" he asked, heatedly, heedless of the fright he was giving her, "What kind of stunt are you trying to pull? I've waited a long time for you, Sara, don't jerk me around."

"I'm not…I…I'm…well," she sputtered, caught by his intense gaze, and more than a little scared at his sudden anger. "Imstayinginvegas" she blurted out, all in a rush, together, and breathlessly garbled.

He tilted his head sideways, not quite sure she'd said what he thought, rather prayed, that she said. Sara looked at him wide eyed, not knowing what would happen next. 

"What did you say?" he asked, softly, boring a hole into her face with his eyes.

"I.  Am.  Staying.  In. Vegas." She repeated slowly, "I wanted to tell you." 

For one long, heart-stopping moment he froze, and then all of a sudden Sara couldn't breathe because her ribs were screaming in pain from Nick's tight hold around them. It was the best feeling in the world. Just when she thought her side couldn't take it any longer, he released her. She got one good breath of air, before he cut that off as well, this time with his mouth. 

It was some time later before she found herself telling him about Deng's call.

***

Nick work up to an unfamiliar ceiling.

 It was smoothly plastered, and painted a soft white as opposed to his apartment's stucco-esque roughness. The lump of dead weight that had put his arm to sleep, shoved an elbow into his ribs, which, he reflected, was what had woken him in the first place. He probably had a bruise there, he thought absently.

Rolling over, he winced as blood began to again flow into his immobilized right arm. The lump, which was, of course, Sara, grunted and snuggled back into his embrace. 

"Hey," he whispered, "wake up. C'mon sweetheart, rise and shine." He started trailing kisses on her neck and shoulders. Incongruity of all incongruities she wore a silky red negligee, not something he would have expected from Sara, but very, very sexy. 

She threw another elbow in his general direction, but he could see the cogs starting to turn inside her head. She growled again, squirmed, stretched, but finally pried one, very suspicious looking, eye open.

"whasamattter?" she mumbled, "I's aseep"

"Nothin' darlin" he drawled, "you're beautiful in the morning, you know that?" 

"Huh?" She opened another eye, blinking owlishly, and he knew she hadn't really heard a word he just said.          

 "I said: you're beautiful in the morning" she blinked a few more times, but smiled, sleepily, and blushed just a little. She wasn't very good at accepting praise, something he learned, to his everlasting amusement.

"C'mon" he stroked her softly, letting the silk carry his hands, "We got work to go to, remember? That nappy little thing that pays the bills."

"Sleep" she muttered, and rolled right over, into his chest, and snuggled.

"Work," he said insistently, "we got some people to deal with, remember? We talked about this last night." 

She grunted again and sat up; the memory of her mission in life had jolted her out of whatever lethargy she'd been in.

"Food or shower?" she asked.

"Food," he decided, wanting to make her a meal of actual food, instead of the garbage she kept in her fringe. 

"OK" and she started to roll out of the shaky double bed they'd shared for the night. He trapped her waist and captured her mouth, not letting it go until her eyes were as foggy now as they'd been when she first woke up. 

Standing at the kitchen countertop in his boxers he tried to make sense of Sara and the non-existent contents of her cupboards. Instead of having cereal or cans or boxes of whatnot in her kitchen cabinets, like a normal human being, Sara had a carefully organised forensic library. Alphabetised and cross referenced by case files and sorted by her own, very unique, filing system.  

He opened the fridge; she had three different boxes of takeout, several two-litres of Diet Mountain Dew, and a piece of pot roast that waved back at him when he opened the door. There were however, three dilapidated looking eggs, and a few slices of Kraft psudo-cheese. 

Deciding against take-out, he grabbed the eggs and cheese and tossed the soured milk and green pot roast. Finding a pan, so clean looking it was probably never used, and some butter, he proceeded to make an egg-and-cheese omelette big enough for them to split. Sara started the water in the shower, and Nick closed his eyes for a moment, taking in the domestic bliss of fixing his woman breakfast on a warm Vegas morning. 

***

Catherine Willows was in considerably less than domestic bliss this morning; Eddie had thrown another one of his temper tantrums in the foyer of her home, right in front of Lindsay, and made everyone late for school. She dragged her overtired body to work, only to discover Gil, petting Sara's left-behind forensic kit with a look on his face that resembled a puppy dog that had been kicked by its master. 

He put it away quickly, but when they got called out to a scene of multiple bodies, with some seriously serious implications, he took both his little Rubbermaid kit and her more rugged Field & Stream tackle box. 

She stopped him, long enough to let him know that she'd seen and understood, then gently hugged his shoulder and continued onwards, calling Nick, Warrick, and for lack of another set of hands, Greg. 

Kneeling at the site of the murders, for multiple murders there were, Catherine reminded herself why it was she continued to do this job.

"Whew this is nasty," Warrick muttered, ever the delicate gentleman, "Looks like they perp has been using this area as a dump site for years. Why the hell didn't we catch this before?"

"It would appear that our perpetrator hadn't been speeding before,"Grissom said smoothly, "If Officer Mendoza hadn't put on her lights to try and pull over the suspect, she never would have would seen the body being dumped from the car."  

Catherine paused in her careful combing of the immediate scene. They were on a bluff that jutted out from underneath a twisting one-lane highway in the middle of the Nevada desert. Wild cacti and scrub bushes covered the whole area, making it damn near impossible for anything but a mountain goat to traverse. 

"Heyyyyy" Greg slid down the bluff to join them, bubbly, for it was one of his few excursions in the field, "H2O anyone? Weatherman says it'll be a stinky day. Don't want to de-hydrate, do we?"

"Great" Catherine muttered, and accepted his proffered bottle of Aqua Fina. As she tilted back her head to gulp down some water she spotted a black Chevy Tahoe coming slowly around the bend. 

Suddenly her heart rate tripled, it was Nick. She was sure of it. 

If anyone, Nick would know about Sara, weather she was actually coming back to CSI or whether Catherine would have to nurse Grissom, and not so incidentally herself, through some seriously bad separation feelings.

 Catherine turned her back, not wanting to see who got out of the car.  If he was alone, then someone she was dearly fond of wasn't going to be back. Ever. She walked to where Grissom was holding court, not wanting to hear that the younger woman had left for good anymore than Grissom would.  

"So what do we have?" she asked him, trying to get her mind back on the case, "Same guy, presumably, multiples, remote drop-off, I'm thinking serial. Not a first timer either. He's got experience."

"It would appear, roughly speaking; that this is the freshest body, dropped in the morning, and this over here is…"

"Oooo," squealed an enthusiastic voice that made Gil freeze in place, "Bones!" 

They turned, almost as a unit, and saw, who else, but Sara, red-faced from the exertion of the decent and smiling that damn half-smile that drove Catherine half-nuts, skidding to a halt at the scene. Nick was at her side, with his hand in hers, helping support them both down the embankment.

"Sorry I'm late," she apologised blandly, but Catherine could see the tension in her body as she stood before them, motionless, as if awaiting their judgement. 

Gil blinked a few times, rapidly. 

It was the closest 'Grissom' expression to I've-been-taken-totally-off-guard-but-I'm-pretending-I-was-expecting-it-anyhow. Noting their conjoined hands, he gave Nick one of his 'Grissom-not-happy' glares, but Nick stood his ground, squaring his shoulders, meeting his eyes, and daring disapproval. 

Wordlessly Gil reached down and handed Sara the tough tackle-box that she used as her kit.

"As long as you're here," he said softly, locking eyes with her then warily flashing back to Nick. 

"Count on it," she grinned, her smile lighting up the desert in a way the sun could never touch. "Lemme guess, you want me to gather the bones, determine how many bodies, what time, what form of death, and call Terri to get her opinion as soon as she can make it. Right?" 

He quirked his head, with a little smile himself, and made a gesture for her to precede him towards the half decomposed corpses, all the while following Nick with his eyes, an unspoken challenge.

 Some serious male ego needed to be smoothed, Catherine thought absently,   standing stock still, and having to remind herself to breathe. That wasn't a task she planned on relishing. She turned to Nick, who'd been watching Grissom closely as well. 

"Is she…" 

Warrick snuck up on them from the other side of the scrub, popping out when Grissom turned away. Greg, with the water bottles leaking from his inattention, watched Sara with undisguised pleasure, another emotional pitfall in the making.

"Oh yeah," Nick grinned, satisfied and happy, his eyes twinkling behind his sunglasses, "oh yeah." 

 "Well, hell, never a dull moment here." Warrick said, shaking his head, "You'd think we never had anything better to do."

Nick chuckled as the team, all of it, settled down to the business at hand. Sure there were still a few more, minor, issues to deal with, but they were all together and that was the important part. Everything else was a detail.  

_Finis _


End file.
